The Big Chili

by Julia Buckley

  “Julia Buckley launches her new series with a delectable concoction of appealing characters and smart sleuthing—and tasty food!”

  —Sheila Connolly, New York Times bestselling author of the County Cork Mysteries

  “The Big Chili is sweet and highly entertaining, with a cast of fun, quirky characters . . . Readers are sure to devour this yummy mystery.”

  —Sue Ann Jaffarian, national bestselling author of the Ghost of Granny Apples Mysteries and the Odelia Grey Mysteries

  JUST A HINT OF DEATH

  “Good evening, everyone. I’m Alice Dixon, and I’m the president of St. Bart’s Altar and Rosary Guild. Thanks for coming out to support St. Bart’s bingo night!”

  Some scattered applause.

  “Tonight’s big jackpot is two thousand, five hundred dollars!”

  That got bigger applause. People really were greedy, I reflected. But then again, I’d been wondering how many bingo jackpots would allow me to enlarge the kitchen in Terry’s little guesthouse. . . .

  Alice smiled again and picked up a bowl of chili from the table next to her. “Pet has made her delicious chili for us tonight, and many other cooks have brought delicacies to our table so that we won’t go hungry while we listen to those numbers!”

  Applause and some laughter.

  Alice took a big bite of chili. I hoped she hadn’t let it get cold. “Pet’s chili is delicious as always—and I think you’ve added something new, haven’t you, Pet? Something sweet. It provides an interesting counterpoint to the flavor.” Pet shot a look at me and I shook my head. Nothing new in the chili. Alice took another bite and set the dish down. “Anyway, this officially starts our evening’s festivities; I hope that—oh my!” She swayed slightly before us, looking distressed. Her right hand flew to her forehead, her left to her abdomen. “I think that—something’s wrong. With the chili.”

  Then she fell like a stone, and we heard her head hit the floor.

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  THE BIG CHILI

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2015 by Julia Buckley.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-16669-1

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / October 2015

  Cover illustration by Griesbach/Martucci.

  Cover design by George Long.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Version_1

  To my husband, Jeff, who makes the best chili.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my super agent, Kim Lionetti, who sold this book in less than a week. Thank you also to my Berkley Prime Crime editors Michelle Vega and Bethany Blair, and to the wonderful art department who brought Mick to life.

  I am grateful to my writing group, with whom I have worked for almost fifteen years and who have become my good friends: Martha Whitehead, Cynthia Quam, and Elizabeth Diskin. Big thanks to Kathi Baron, who is always willing to read and critique a manuscript despite her own busy writing schedule, and whose literary breakfasts and lunches always reenergize my writing spirit.

  Thank you to the MWA, who supported me when I was an orphaned author and gave me scholarship money, which helped me obtain my MA in English.

  For their friendship and super support of my efforts in the publishing world, big thanks to Sue Ann Jaffarian, Sheila Connolly, Anne Frasier, and John Dandola.

  Thanks to everyone in my family, starting with my mom and dad, Bill and Kate Rohaly, and extending to my siblings and all of their children. Thanks to my English Department colleagues for their daily inspirations in the discipline I love: Terese Black, Rose Crnkovich, Linda Harrington, Maggie McNair, Margaret Metzger, and Kathleen Maloney. Thanks to all of my students, past and present, for inspiring me to a deeper love of language and literature.

  Much appreciation to my husband, Jeff, and sons, Ian and Graham, for providing answers to all my random questions about guns, realistic dialogue, music, and poison.

  Thanks to all the great musical artists who provide the sound track in Lilah’s head.

  Thanks to all booksellers and librarians for being the coolest people around, especially librarians Molly Klowden and Sue Tindall, and bookseller Augie Aleksy of Centuries and Sleuths bookstore.

  Contents

  Praise for The Big Chili

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Recipes

  Next to music there is nothing that lifts the spirits and strengthens the soul more than a good bowl of chili.

  —HARRY JAMES, band leader and trumpeter

  Whenever I meet someone who does not consider chili a favorite dish, then I’ve usually found someone who has never tasted good chili.

  —JAN BUTEL, author of Chili Madness

  Some enchanted evening

  You may see a stranger . . .

  —EMILE DE BECQUE, “Some Enchanted Evening” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific

  CHAPTER ONE

  My chocolate Labrador watched me as I parked my previously loved Volvo wagon and took my covered pan out of the backseat; the autumn wind buffeted my face and made a mess of my hair. “I’ll be right back, Mick,” I said. “I know that pot in the back smells good, but I’m counting on you to behave and wait for your treat.”

  He nodded at me. Mick was a remarkable dog for many reasons, but one of his best talents was that he had trained himself to nod while I was talking. He was my dream companion: a handsome male who listened attentively and never interrupted or condescended. He also made me feel safe when I did my clandestine duties all over Pine Haven.

  I shut the car door and moved up the walkway of Ellie Parker’s house. She usually kept the door unlocked, though I had begged her to reconsider th
at idea. We had an agreement; if she wasn’t there, or if she was out back puttering around in her garden, I could just leave the casserole on the table and take the money she left out for me. I charged fifty dollars, which included the price of ingredients. Ellie said I could charge more, but for now this little sideline of a job was helping me pay the bills, and that was good enough.

  “Ellie?” I called. I went into her kitchen, where I’d been several times before, and found it neat, as always; Ellie was not inside. Disappointed, I left the dish on her scrubbed wooden table. I had made a lovely mac and cheese casserole with a twist: finely sliced onion and prosciutto baked in with three different cheeses for a show-stopping event of a main course. It was delicious and very close to the way Ellie prepared it before her arthritis had made it too difficult to cook for her visiting friends and family. She didn’t want her loved ones to know this, which was where I came in. We’d had an agreement for almost a year, and it served us both well.

  She knew how long to bake the dish, so I didn’t bother with writing down any directions. Normally she would invite Mick in, and she and I would have some tea and shoot the breeze while my canine lounged under the table, but today, for whatever reason, she had made other plans. She hadn’t set out the money, either, so I went to the cookie jar where she had told me to find my payment in the past: a ceramic cylinder in the shape of a chubby monkey. I claimed my money and turned around to find a man looming in the doorway.

  “Ah!” I screamed, clutching the cash in front of my waist like a weird bouquet.

  “Hello,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “May I ask who you are?”

  “I’m a friend of Ellie’s. Who are you?” I fired back. Ellie had never suggested that a man—a sort of good-looking, youngish man—would appear in her house. For all I knew he could be a burglar.

  “I am Ellie’s son. Jay Parker.” He wore reading glasses, and he peered at me over these like a stern teacher. It was a good look for him. “And I didn’t expect to find a strange woman dipping into Mom’s cash jar while she wasn’t in the house.”

  A little bead of perspiration worked its way down my back. “First of all, I am not a strange woman. In any sense. Ellie and I are friends, and I—”

  I what? What could I tell him? My little covered-dish business was an under-the-table operation, and the people who ordered my food wanted it to appear that they had made it themselves. That, and the deliciousness of my cooking, was what they paid me for. “I did a job for her, and she told me to take payment.”

  “Is that so?” He leaned against the door frame, a man with all the time in the world. All he needed was a piece of hay to chew on. “And what job did you do for her?” He clearly didn’t believe me. With a pang I realized that this man thought I was a thief.

  “I mowed her lawn,” I blurted. We both turned to look out the window at Ellie’s remarkably high grass. “Wow. That really was not a good choice,” I murmured.

  Now his face grew alert, wary, as though he were ready to employ some sort of martial art if necessary. I may as well have been facing a cop. “What exactly is your relationship to my mother? And how did you even get in here, if my mom isn’t home?”

  At least I could tell the truth about that. “I’m Lilah Drake. Ellie left the door unlocked for me because she was expecting me. As I said, we are friends.”

  This did not please him. “I think she was actually expecting me,” he said. “So you could potentially have just gotten lucky when you tried the doorknob.”

  “Oh my God!” My face felt hot with embarrassment. “I’m not stealing Ellie’s money. She and I have an—arrangement. I can’t actually discuss it with you. Maybe if you asked your mother . . . ?” Ellie was creative; she could come up with a good lie for her son, and he’d have to believe her.

  There was a silence, as though he were weighing evidence. It felt condescending and weirdly terrifying. “Listen, I have to get going. My dog is waiting—”

  He brightened for the first time. “That’s your dog, huh? I figured. He’s pretty awesome. What is he, a chocolate Lab?”

  “Yes, he is.” I shifted on my feet, not sure how to extricate myself from the situation. My brother said I had a knack for getting into weird predicaments.

  I sighed, and he said, “So what do we do now?” He patted his shirt pocket, as though looking for a pack of cigarettes, then grimaced and produced a piece of gum. He unwrapped it while still watching me. His glasses had slid down even farther on his nose, and I felt like plucking them off. He popped the gum into his mouth and took off the glasses himself, then beamed a blue gaze at me. Wow. “How about if we just wait here together and see what my mom has to say? She’s probably out back in the garden, picking pumpkins or harvesting the last of her tomatoes.”

  I put the money on Ellie’s table. “You know what? Ellie can pay me later. I won’t have you—casting aspersions on my character.”

  “Fancy words,” said Ellie’s son. He moved a little closer to me, until I could smell spearmint on his breath. “I still think you should hang around.”

  I put my hands on my hips, the way my mother used to do when Cam or I forgot to do the dishes. “I have things to do. Please tell Ellie I said hello.”

  I whisked past him, out to my car, where Mick sat waiting, a picture of patience. I climbed in and started confiding. “Do you believe that guy? Now I’m going to have to come back here later to get paid. I don’t have time for this, Mick!”

  Mick nodded with what seemed like sympathy.

  I reversed out of Ellie’s driveway, still fuming. But halfway home, encouraged by Mick’s stolid support, and enjoying the Mary Poppins sound track in my CD player, I calmed down slightly. These things could happen in the business world, I told myself. There was no need to give another thought to tall Jay Parker and his accusations and his blue eyes.

  I began to sing along with the music, assuring Mick melodically that I would find the perfect nanny. Something in the look he gave me made me respond aloud. “And another thing. I’m a grown woman. I’m twenty-seven years old, Mick. I don’t need some condescending man treating me like a child. Am I right?”

  Mick was distracted by a Chihuahua on the sidewalk, so I didn’t get a nod.

  “Huh. She’s pretty cute, right?”

  No response. I sighed and went back to my singing, flicking forward on the CD and testing my upper range with “Feed the Birds.” I started squeaking by the time I reached the middle. “It’s tricky, Mick. It starts low, and then you get nailed on the refrain. We can’t all be Julie Andrews.” Mick’s expression was benevolent.

  I drove to Caldwell Street and St. Bartholomew Church, where I headed to the back parking lot behind the rectory. I took out my phone and texted I’m here to Pet Grandy, a member of St. Bart’s Altar and Rosary Guild, a scion of the church, and a go-to person for church social events. Pet was popular, and she had a burning desire to be all things to all people. This included her wish to make food for every church event—good food that earned her praise and adulation. Since Pet was actually a terrible cook, I was the answer to her prayers. I had made a lot of money off Pet Grandy in the last year.

  “She’ll be out here within thirty seconds,” I told Mick, and sure enough, he had barely started nodding before Pet burst out of the back door of the church social hall and made a beeline for the adjoining rectory lot. Pet’s full name was Perpetua; her mother had named her for some nun who had once taught at the parish school. Pet basically lived at the church; she was always running one event or another, and Father Schmidt was her gangly other half. They made a hilarious duo: he, tall and thin in his priestly black, and she, short and plump as a tomato and sporting one of her many velour sweat suits—often in offensively bright colors. In fall, you could often spot them tending to the autumnal flower beds outside St. Bart’s. At Christmastime, one of them would hold the ladder while the other swayed in front of the giant pine ou
tside the church, clutching strings of white Christmas lights. Pet was utterly devoted to Father Schmidt; they were like a platonic married couple.

  As she marched toward my car, I studied her. Today’s ensemble, also velour, was a bright orange number that made her look like a calendar-appropriate pumpkin. Her cheeks were rosy in the cold, and her dark silver-flecked hair was cut short and no-nonsense. Pet was not a frilly person.

  She approached my vehicle, as always, with an almost sinister expression, as if she were buying drugs. Pet was very careful that no one should know what we were doing or why. On the rare occasions that someone witnessed the food handoff, Pet pretended that I was just driving it over from her house. Today she had ordered a huge Crock-Pot full of chili for the bingo event in the church hall. Everyone was bringing food, but Pet’s (my) chili had become a favorite.

  I rolled down my window, and Pet looked both ways before leaning in. Her eyes darted constantly, like those of someone marked for assassination. “Hello, Lilah. Is it light enough for me to carry?”

  “It’s pretty heavy, Pet. Do you want me to—”

  “No, no. I have a dolly in the vestibule. I’ll just run and get it. Here’s the money.” She thrust an envelope through the window at me with her left hand, her body turned sideways and her right hand scratching her face in an attempt to look casual. Pet was so practiced at clandestine maneuvers that I thought she might actually make a good criminal. I watched her rapid-walk back to the church and marveled that she wasn’t thin as a reed, since she was always moving. Pet, however, had the Achilles’ heel of a sweet addiction: she loved it all, she had told me once. Donuts, cookies, cake, pie, ice cream. “I probably have sweets three times a day. My doctor told me I’m lucky I don’t have diabetes. But I crave it all the time!”

  Pet reappeared and I pretended that I was about to get out of my car to help her. I did this every time, just to tease her, and every time she took the bait. “No,” she shouted, her hand up as though to ward off a bullet aimed at her heart. “Stay there! Someone might see you!”