The Big Chili Read online

  “You can love someone and still cheat on them,” my father said. “Or at least you can tell yourself it’s love.” He didn’t look at me when he said this, but I knew he was talking about Angelo.

  On the night that I broke it off with him, Angelo came to my parents’ house, demanding to see me, in his typical passionate way. My father, a decidedly unpassionate man, went out in the dark yard to speak with Angelo, and Angelo never contacted me again. I still didn’t know what was said, nor did I want to.

  I sighed and looked around the yard. “It’s so beautiful here. Like a little sanctuary.”

  My father sat down next to me and patted my hand. “That’s exactly what it is. Hey—your dog is sniffing around my grill.”

  “He won’t steal anything. He’s just waiting for you to offer something.”

  My father looked suspicious. “I’m not giving him a steak.”

  “Just some drippings, maybe, or some fat. Mick just loves the smell.”

  “Hey, boy,” my father called. Mick loped over, smiling, and my father got to work rubbing his head. I wondered if my mother knew what a good man she had; I thought she probably did, even though she had speechified about money and independence.

  My father’s phone beeped in his pocket. He took it out, flipped it on, and said, “Hello.”

  He listened for a while, his face attentive, and then he said, “Okay, sure. Maybe in about half an hour? Come by the house, and I’ll drive us out there.”

  I frowned at him. “Are you leaving?”

  “Just for thirty minutes or so. That was Hank Dixon, speak of the devil. He and Tammy want to take a couple of quick measurements in the house. I’ll just run them over and then come back. But we have half an hour to eat before they get here.”

  So we called out my mother and Cameron and Serafina, and the five of us shared a meal on the chilly deck, gazing at the glimmering leaves and talking about love and coincidence and Italy and wine.

  I lost myself in those surprisingly happy moments, laughing when Serafina got down to Mick’s level and kissed him right on his dog mouth. The woman was irrepressible. I looked at my brother and gave him a thumbs-up, and he looked so relieved and happy that I realized she really was the one, because Cameron had never cared what we thought of his girlfriends before.

  Our autumn idyll was interrupted by the sight of Hank and Tammy, who had walked around the side of the house to find us on the deck. “Hey, I know you,” Tammy said, pointing at me. She sported another pair of crazy-high heels, even though she wore jeans and a sweater, and I feared she would catch her foot in a gopher hole and break her leg.

  “Hi, Tammy.”

  “Did you hear we got the house?”

  “Yes! Congratulations.”

  Tammy walked closer and spied Mick. “Can I take a look at the paw?” she said.

  “That would be great!”

  She called my dog and he went over, head bowing and tail wagging. Tammy squatted down and picked up his paw, peering at his paw pad. “It looks terrific. Still nice and clean.”

  She stood up again and took Hank’s hand.

  Hank Dixon still looked sort of solemn, but Tammy’s happiness had brought some life to his face, and I could see a trace of his normal good looks. “Thanks for doing this, Daniel,” he said to my father. “I didn’t realize we’d be interrupting a family event.”

  “It won’t take long,” my father said. “Hopefully they’ll all still be here when I return.”

  “Just a few quick measurements,” Tammy said, winking at me. “We ladies like to start planning even before we move in, right, Lilah?”

  Every woman seemed to think I was her pal. “We sure do,” I said, smiling back.

  My father grabbed his wallet and keys and walked around the corner with Hank and Tammy. My mother collected some dishes, and Serafina leaped up to help her, grabbing wineglasses and a Jell-O mold that undulated slightly less than Serafina did. My brother never took his eyes off of her.

  “I’m afraid you might actually put her on a plate and eat her,” I said.

  He finally looked at me, laughing. “Can’t help it. She’s amazing.”

  “No arguments there. She’s like Sophia Loren and Penélope Cruz got put into a blender.”

  “Right?”

  “Are you going to marry her?”

  “Yes, I am,” said my brother. “If she says yes.”

  “Will my nieces and nephews have Italian accents and call me Zia Lilah?”

  He laughed again. “You crack me up. And no, because Serafina intends to live in America.”

  “Good. I was half fearing you’d relocate to Rome.”

  “If she asked me to, I would. But she knows we Drakes are a small family. She’s got a big one, and they’re spread all over. Three of her siblings are here in the US.”

  “Huh. Any brothers who look like her?”

  “Some.” Cam’s look was assessing. “I thought maybe you’d had enough of Italian men.”

  “Maybe I have.”

  “What about this cop you said you had a crush on?”

  “That’s a no-go,” I said.

  My brother patted my head and gave me a sip of his wine.

  * * *

  WHEN MY FATHER returned he started scrubbing his grill; he was meticulous about his barbecue routine. “How’s the happy couple?” I asked.

  “Fine,” my dad said. He looked around to make sure no one else was with us. “But Hank grabbed me while Tammy was upstairs with her tape measure and said that he had been about to talk with Bert on the night he died.”

  I had been watching a moth that flew persistently into my father’s deck light and refused to learn from its mistakes. Now I spun on the deck bench so that I fully faced my father. “What? What do you mean, ‘about to talk to him’?”

  “Bert had called him and said he needed to tell him something. Hank said he’d stop by the library after work, but by then Bert was dead.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “He thinks Bert knew something about why Alice died. And he thinks someone killed Bert to prevent him from talking.”

  There was silence, except for some tree frogs and cicadas, doing their surprisingly loud nighttime singing. “But—has he told this to the police?”

  My father shook his head. “Apparently they put him through quite a grilling the other night. He’s not eager to speak with them again. He only told me because it was obviously bugging him. It was on his mind, and I was there.”

  My father was easy to confide in, and many a person had spilled their sorrows to him over his lifetime, including his daughter. “Well, he needs to tell the cops.”

  “I assume he will eventually. Still, you might want to mention it to your friend, if you happen to see him again.” He didn’t look at me while he said that.

  “It’s not likely, Dad.”

  “No big deal, then.”

  * * *

  AT THE END of the evening my mother came through with the promised ice cream, and we sat on the couches in the living room and watched Houseboat with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, cuddled up in couples: Cam and Fina (as he called her), Mom and Dad, Mick and me. Because my mother knew I was depressed, she gave dispensation for Mick to sit on the couch and have his own ice cream.

  Sophia Loren appeared on-screen; she yelled something with angry, beautiful fervor at Cary Grant, who looked handsomely confused. “There’s Cam and Serafina in two years,” I said, and everyone laughed. Then Cam and Serafina made out for a full minute while the rest of us watched without apology. They truly were attractive, just like Cary and Sophia. My mother murmured something against my father’s ear; I could swear I heard the word grandchildren. My father was clearly excited to have my mother murmuring in his ear, so when the movie ended twenty minutes later, I looked at Mick and he nodded. It was time to go.
r />   Everyone rushed to walk me to the door, and Serafina gave me a series of kisses all over my face as her good-bye. “Geez, Cam, if you break up with her, I’m asking her out,” I said, and I left on the wave of their laughter.

  “At least I amuse everyone,” I said to Mick as we walked to the car. I had earned giggles from Pet, my mother, Tammy, and everyone in my parents’ house. Only one person had been distinctly unamused by my behavior recently.

  The memory of Jay Parker’s cold eyes made the dark evening seem colder, and when Mick had finished his business, I locked us securely into the tiny house and found my fleeciest pajamas. We briefly watched a Western on my petite attic television, but I found that my eyes were drooping, so I flicked it off and pulled up my covers. “Tomorrow is another day, Mick,” I said, although he was already snoring in his basket.

  Then I thought of what my father had said about Hank. It seemed that Hank Dixon was the only one who cared about finding his wife’s killer, and the killer of Bert Spielman. But then I remembered Hank Dixon’s face in the window of his ex-wife’s house. At the time it had looked sad, but in retrospect it seemed sinister. . . .

  “I need sleep,” I murmured and buried my face in my pillow. But even behind my closed lids I could see the faces of various people who had been there the night that Alice died: simple, friendly, innocuous people—one of whom had been a murderer.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next morning I was cheered by the thought of Terry’s Halloween party. There were always plenty of cute guys at Terry’s event, and I had decided to forgo the Elvira idea and to look amazing—Serafina-level amazing. There wasn’t time to get a costume now, but I happened to have a little ace up my sleeve. Two Halloweens earlier the church had put on a variety show to raise money for a new playground. My parents had volunteered to do a skit and were given a script in which they played Batman and Robin (God knows why, or who wrote these things). My mother, a talented seamstress, made the costumes for herself and my father, as well as for me—whom my mother had persuaded to play a walk-on role as Catwoman at the end of the skit. “You don’t have to say any words,” my mother said. “Just look sexy.”

  Since my father was Batman, I had some problems with this, but my mother had finally persuaded me by showing me the sad playground behind St. Bart’s. So I walked onto the stage in three different shows, and the audience clapped appreciatively. It was a really dumb skit, which goes to show that people are desperate for a laugh.

  I still had the Catwoman outfit, and now it seemed an appropriate thing to wear. My weight hadn’t changed significantly, so I felt I could still stuff myself into the leatherlike costume.

  I toyed with bringing Mick to the party, but I decided I’d leave him at home. I’d only be gone a few hours, and he could sit that long by himself without feeling left out. Our little house was so far down the driveway that we didn’t tend to get trick-or-treaters, which was good, since that would send Mick into a frenzy. Terry got all the costumed children, and every year he and Britt managed to give out something memorable.

  At noon I drove to St. Bart’s and delivered Pet’s chili. Pet came out looking sinister as ever with her envelope full of cash and her deliberate lack of eye contact. According to tradition, I offered to get out of the car, only to have Pet dance around like Rumpelstiltskin, assuring me that she was fine. This time she had brought the dolly with her, and she made quick work of the transfer.

  “Thanks for bringing this from my house,” she intoned loudly. I had grown fond of the whole process—it was Theatre of the Absurd that would have cost a lot more on a New York stage.

  “See you, Pet. Happy Halloween,” I said. “You are guarding that chili, right? All day long?”

  “I am,” she assured me. “No one will touch it.”

  God, I hoped not. I said good-bye again and drove off. When I looked in my rearview mirror, I saw that Father Schmidt had joined her and was holding the door open for her in a chivalrous way. I heard him saying, through my slightly open window, “. . . smells delicious, as usual!” So even Father Schmidt wanted Pet to know that there were no hard feelings about the poisoned chili—at least not toward her.

  I had a message when I got home; it was from Toby Atwater, a guy with five kids, for whom I sometimes made a French toast casserole—a dish of my own invention. He saved his “special recipe” for kids’ birthdays and his anniversary and such. He wanted one for Saturday morning. I stowed my money from Pet in my kitchen drawer where I kept my covered-dish finances, and called him back, assuring him that I would have it ready Saturday morning, and that I would meet him in our usual place—the viaduct under Route 23, just outside town limits. Then I wrote the date on my calendar, in code, just in case I ever had a nosy visitor. It said “Breakfast with Toby.” I wrote it in red pen, which meant a job. If I ever wrote a date in black pen, it was a real date.

  On today’s calendar square, there was a black notation that said “Terry’s Halloween Party, 7:00.”

  That gave me about five hours. I did not want to spend it mooning around, so I got my cleaning equipment out and did a thorough washing, vacuuming, dusting, and decluttering of my little house. When I was finished, it was glowing, and the sun in the room seemed brighter because I had actually washed my windows. “Now, that’s clean, Mick.”

  Mick agreed in his silent way, and it earned him some lunch. Then, feeling grubby, I retired to my bathroom and took a luxurious shower. It was fun, I decided, having hours and hours to get ready for a party. Who knew, on this day of devilish mischief, what treats awaited me?

  By five o’clock I had squeezed my way into the black costume. I left off the mask and ears so that I could really go to work on my hair. I never bothered with my locks. They were long and pretty straight, and I generally liked them that way. But sometimes, when I needed to feel gorgeous (after meeting someone like Serafina, for example), I got out the curling iron and gave myself what my mother and I used to call “Sleeping Beauty hair.” This took me almost forty-five minutes, but at the end I had bouncy blonde waves that made me look a little bit like a pageant contestant, which suited my mood.

  I still had about an hour. What to do? Read a book? I was too geared up. Watch television? Same thing. Mick wanted to go outside, so I decided to go into my teeny backyard and breathe in some fresh air. I flipped on the security light, which, thanks to my father, was laser-bright. I saw that I had left a rake leaning on my back shed. I headed toward it, inhaling deeply. It felt good. I loved cold weather, I loved October, and I loved a good dark Halloween night. I could hear the sound of children running up and down Dickens Street, enjoying their candy hunt. I laughed a little to myself, and Mick seemed to be smiling, too, as he sniffed along the line of trees at the end of our yard. I grabbed the rake; Mick lifted his head and barked, and I turned to see a dark figure coming toward me down the side path, like a man from a nightmare. My scream was so loud that even Mick stopped barking and turned to look at me. My eyes were blinded by the glare of my outdoor light, so I could only make out a silhouette of a bulky form and a head that seemed made of Medusa-like snakes and devil horns. I held up my rake as though it were a lance . . . then, in a sudden shift of perception, I saw that the visitor was Angelo, and he was wearing devil horns, along with a little red cape over his habitual black T-shirt and jeans. The latter outfit was one that Angelo wore particularly well.

  “Lilah,” he said in his sexy voice, putting out his hands in entreaty. “Put down the rake, eh? I come in peace.”

  I let out a shuddery sigh as I lowered my weapon. “What are you doing, sneaking up on me in the dark? I should go ahead and stab you.”

  He put on his patient look. “I was not sneaking up on you. You did not answer my knock on the front door, and I saw your back light was on. So. I came to speak with you.”

  “Dressed as the devil?”

  “You are dressed as a cat. A very sexy cat,” he added. �
�Consider what day it is, Lilah mia.”

  Initially Angelo’s sexy little Italian sayings had enthralled me—that was, until I’d realized he used them on everyone. Angelo knew how to work his foreignness to his advantage.

  “Fine. I assume you’re going to a Halloween party and you don’t just intend to scare children who come to your house.”

  He laughed, but there was some misery in it. “Can we go inside? I need to ask you something.”

  “Angelo, if this is about us—”

  He held up a hand. “There has been no us for some time, eh? I’m here about something else.”

  I put my rake inside the shed and snapped for Mick. We all trailed through my kitchen door. I went to the sink and leaned against it, steeling myself against any residual feelings that might pop up as Angelo bent his tall frame through my doorway and stood smiling at me, as he had once done almost every evening. “What’s up?” I said.

  He went to my island and sat on one of the stools. Mick moved forward, in the Mick tradition, and Angelo began to pet him automatically. “I have been approached by the police,” he said. “Not once but twice.”

  “What do you mean, ‘approached’?”

  “Two people have been killed. . . .”

  “What? You mean the poisonings? How does that lead them to you?”

  He shrugged. “This is what I wonder, as well. In the first case, they said that they had analyzed the food that killed this woman who died in your parish. They came to me because the ingredients turned up peanut butter—not just any, but my special brand, with its distinctive ingredients.”

  Angelo, along with owning what was arguably the best restaurant in town, had started a lucrative sideline—marketing his own special recipes in a gourmet food line that was now carried by several Chicago-area stores. One of his bestselling items was Angelo’s Gourmet peanut butter. It was delicious, and it was the secret ingredient of Pet’s chili. My chili.

  I stared at him, shocked. “But why would they analyze the ingredients if they knew that someone put cyanide in it? Why would it matter what ingredients were in the food?”