The Big Chili Page 8

  “Tony? Oh, he went to jail. He’s still there, but he’s getting out soon. He has a fiancée that he met while he was in jail. I guess she used to come and read to them or sing with them or something? I can’t remember. Anyway, they’re getting married when he gets out.”

  “And has his family—forgiven him?”

  Theresa shrugged. “They never really held it against him. He’s such a nice kid, and the dad had his issues.”

  I didn’t know what this meant, but they were depressing me. “I’d better get this to Pet,” I said. “Thanks for the chat.”

  “Bye, sweetheart,” yelled Trixie.

  “Bye, Lilah,” said Theresa.

  Mick had been wandering around, sniffing for mice, and he didn’t seem eager to leave when I called him. Still, he padded at my side happily enough once we got outside. Mick loved running errands.

  I drove home and stowed the gorgeous Crock-Pot in my house. If I liked it, I would put it on my Christmas list—my parents bought me one nice thing for my kitchen every Christmas and on every birthday. I was building up a fine pantry full of tools and dishes.

  My phone rang while I was puttering around my tiny kitchen, humming a Harry Connick tune.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, kid.” It was my brother, sounding both lazy and busy at the same time. He was probably at the desk of his cool office at Loyola, which had one big window that looked right out onto Lake Michigan. “Are you going to this Halloween party of Terry’s?”

  “Yes! Are you actually coming out for it? I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  “Yeah. I’m bringing someone, too.”

  “That’s good. I’ll be glad to meet your Italian love.”

  “You heard?”

  “Yes—from Mom.”

  “You bringing anyone?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. Bringing no one is preferable to bringing Angelo.”

  “Geez! I wish everyone would stop mentioning him to me.”

  “No problem. Consider him wiped out of my memory banks. So how important is it that I wear a costume to this crazy thing?”

  “Terry and Britt would love it. Just find something easy. Remember how much fun we had dressing up? Hey, do you want to do a buddy costume again?”

  “I would, Lilo, but there’s going to be this lady that I want to impress, and if you and I are dressed as Sonny and Cher or some other dorky thing—”

  “Sonny and Cher would be awesome!”

  “And yet, no.”

  “Fine. So you want to impress this woman, huh? Unlike the other poor things you drag around who beg for the crumbs of your affection?”

  “This one’s different,” said my brother.

  The hair stood up on my arms. “Oh my gosh, she’s the one! Will I like her? She’s not bitchy, is she? You tend to find bitchy women, Cam.”

  He laughed. “No, she’s not bitchy. You’ll love her.”

  “Great. I can’t wait to meet her.”

  “So, what else is new?”

  “I have sort of a crush on someone. But he really doesn’t know I’m alive, so it’s a pretty safe thing.”

  “Oh? Who is this?”

  I sighed. “Did Mom tell you that a lady at our church got murdered at bingo on Saturday?”

  “What?! No, Mom did not mention that!”

  “Well, anyway, she dropped dead right in front of us—poisoned. And I think—”

  “I’m still trying to absorb this. Someone died in front of you? At a church event?”

  “Yes. I think it was cyanide, but they haven’t confirmed that.”

  “Oh, you do? And what makes you the great detective?”

  “The cop who came out seemed to suspect that the chili had been poisoned, and I went up and smelled it, and it smelled like almonds. That’s what cyanide smells like, according to my Web sources.”

  Silence for a while. Then Cam said, “And how does this woman’s cyanide murder, which happened before your eyes, relate to the person you have a crush on?”

  “In that he’s the investigating detective.”

  “Holy cannoli! Your stories are always better than mine.”

  “There’s actually a lot more to it, but I’m not going to get into it over the phone.”

  I could hear him crunching something into the receiver—probably chips. Cam tended to eat during phone calls, which annoyed everyone. “My God, I really do need to visit more often.”

  “Yes, you do. And sometimes you should just come to my humble home for dinner. I miss you, you jerk.”

  “I know. I’ll be better about it now that summer’s over and I’m not traveling as much.”

  “Great. And I don’t recall getting a souvenir from your trip to Italy.”

  “I still have it, greedy. It’s a necklace that I got at a museum gift shop. Beautiful.”

  “Then all is forgiven. I guess I’ll see you Friday?”

  “Yes, you will. Bye, Lilo.”

  “Bye.”

  I hung up, smiling, and in that instant the phone rang again.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Um—Lilah?”

  I recognized the voice, and the um, instantly. It was Shelby Jansen, a girl from Pine Haven High who was also a sort of protégée of mine. She’d been there on bingo night, as well. Before I’d started my secret food business, I’d done all sorts of odd jobs for money, one of which had been tutoring Shelby in English. Even after that gig ended, Shelby and I had kept in touch, sporadically messaging each other on Facebook or occasionally calling each other to say hi.

  “Hey, Shelby! Long time no see.”

  “You saw me on Saturday night.”

  “True—but I never even had a chance to say hello.”

  “I know.” Her voice sounded a little bit quavery.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I mean, I’m not freaked out about Saturday or anything, but there is something bugging me.”

  “Okay. What’s that?”

  “Do you have time for me to come over? I have fresh cookies. I was going to bring you some anyway. They’re Halloween cookies that me and my mom made.”

  “My mom and I,” I said, slipping back into tutor mode.

  “Whatever,” said Shelby.

  “Sure, come on over. Mick misses you.”

  “Okay. And can I bring Jake?”

  Jake was Shelby’s boyfriend—he was big and sort of dumb, but nice enough. “Sure—the more, the merrier.”

  “Thanks, Lilah. We’ll be right over,” Shelby said.

  I rooted around in my refrigerator to see if I had beverages to offer to the cookie-wielding teens. I spied a quart of skim milk and sniffed it: still okay. I always had some Diet Coke because it was something of an addiction for me. Even though various Internet sources assured me I would die very soon from its contents, I couldn’t seem to give it up.

  I looked at Mick, who sat resting by the stove (one of his favorite spots, especially when meat was cooking in it). “Crazy day, huh, buddy?”

  Mick didn’t nod because his chin was resting on his paws, but his eyes seemed to agree with me when they were open. He was indulging in some long blinks, which meant he would soon be asleep. Sometimes I envied Mick his gentle lifestyle. He was well fed and had two cozy beds, many fun walking routes, his own backyard for rooting out scents in any season, and a fairly attractive owner who loved him. He gave the phrase “a dog’s life” a whole new meaning.

  With a sigh I snapped open a Diet Coke, took a swig, and looked out at the gold leaves.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Shelby’s cookies were wonderful: pumpkin-shaped and pumpkin-flavored, with cream cheese frosting. “I might gain five pounds eating these,” I said, shoving a second one into my mouth.

  “Aren’t they great? It
’s a family recipe,” Shelby said, and Jake nodded his appreciation. He was at least six feet tall and broad-shouldered, but his face was young and half-obscured by gold-brown hair that hung over one eye. The part of his countenance that was visible looked worried.

  I decided not to rush whatever it was they wanted to tell me. Shelby carefully poured herself some milk and Jake concentrated on massaging Mick’s back, much to Mick’s pleasure.

  “How’s English going this year?” I asked Shelby, wiping frosting from the corner of my mouth.

  “It’s going good. I mean, it’s going well,” she corrected, rolling her eyes. Shelby didn’t like the arbitrariness of grammar rules. “I’m getting a B right now. I promised my mom I’d keep it there or higher. Mr. Branson is pretty good about meeting with people if they have questions.”

  “Ah. Always a good thing in a teacher.”

  “Yeah.” Shelby reached out to rearrange the cookies on the plate. Jake watched her do it as though the fate of Pine Haven hung on her actions. It was as tense as those “red wire or blue wire” scenes in suspense movies, where the hero has to snip one to defuse the bomb.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” I said, my voice snapping into the tense silence.

  Shelby looked up with wide brown-eyed surprise. “What? How can you tell something’s going on?”

  “Well, for one thing, you’re here. We haven’t really talked since your last tutoring session. For another, you both look like you killed someone and are worried about where to bury the body.”

  This macabre joke did not have the desired effect; both of them looked downright guilty.

  “What’s going on, Shelby?” I said again.

  She held up her little hand. “Nothing. Nothing like you’re thinking. It’s just—we were both there on bingo night. You saw us.”

  “Yes.”

  “And we saw that you’re friends with that cop who was asking all the questions.”

  “Detective Parker? Actually we only met that day. We’re not friends,” I said.

  “Well, anyway, you seem to know him, and he seems to like you. You’re the only one he smiled at the whole night. He has sort of a scary face.”

  Jake nodded at this, one eye still obscured by his hair.

  “He was just doing his job, Shelby. A woman had been murdered.”

  Shelby and Jake exchange a glance. “Well—we were wondering if you could tell him—the cop—that we didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  This silenced me for about a minute. Various thoughts darted through my head. Why were sixteen-year-old kids worried that they’d be suspected of murder? Was it because they were somehow guilty? Did they know something about Alice Dixon’s death? But how would two teenagers have the wherewithal to poison someone?

  “Now you look suspicious, too!” Shelby cried. “I told Jake that the cop looked suspicious of us.”

  I folded my hands. “Let’s start at the beginning. Are you telling me that you’re innocent, or that you’re guilty? Because you’re both making really guilty faces.”

  “We’re not guilty of murder!” Shelby said, her eyes so large they seemed to fill her face.

  “We just feel guilty,” Jake said, his expression helpful.

  “Okay. And why do you feel guilty?”

  They exchanged another glance.

  I sighed. “Here’s another question. Why were you even there?”

  Jake decided to field that one. “We need service hours for school, and for college applications. Father Schmidt is pretty nice about signing our service hour sheets when we help with activities at the church. We’ve helped at the St. Bart’s homeless sheltering events, and at the fall festival, and at bingo. Even though it’s not strictly service, since the people at bingo aren’t a community in need, Father Schmidt said it was okay, because we were working for our faith community.”

  That was a long speech for Jake, and I realized that he had more depth than I’d previously realized.

  “So you were doing it as a service.”

  “Yes,” Shelby said, nodding and smiling.

  “Okay. I’m failing to see the reason you feel guilty. I assume this has something to do with Alice Dixon?”

  Again they exchanged a glance. I was getting tired of this. It felt as obvious as a soap opera, although they seemed oblivious to the fact that I could see their dramatic reactions.

  “Why do you think it’s related to Alice Dixon?” asked Jake. He had been petting Mick, and now his hands froze, keeping Mick’s floppy ears sticking up like strange antennae.

  “Again, because you’re here and she was just murdered, and you are concerned about the investigating detective.”

  “Right,” Jake conceded, nodding. To my relief, he let go of Mick’s ears and finally pushed the hair out of his eyes, giving me a view of his whole face. He was a handsome boy with a high, pale forehead and almond-shaped hazel eyes. “The thing is, we talked with Mrs. Dixon on that night. We sort of fought with her.”

  This was interesting. “I need a third cookie for this.” I took one and bit into it, letting the cream cheese and butter disintegrate on my tongue. “You argued with Alice?”

  Jake opened his mouth to explain, but Shelby cut in. “It’s not like we were looking to fight with her. Jake and I were doing dishes in the kitchen, and she came in to put some sort of decoration on a cake she made. She was there with this bag of nuts and arranging the nuts on the frosting. And we were talking about animals, because Jake and I are both members of the Pine Haven High Animal Protection Club. Miss Grandy is our moderator.”

  I sighed. Of course she was. On the list of their many volunteer activities, the Grandy sisters worked in the local schools. Angelica coached soccer at St. Bart’s, and Harmonia and Pet donated their time at the high school. I hadn’t known about the animal club, though.

  “So?”

  “So Mrs. Dixon was talking about this dog she had. His name is Apollo.”

  This surprised me. I hadn’t pegged Alice as a dog person, and I had never heard of Apollo.

  “He was really Mr. Dixon’s dog,” Jake added.

  “Okay.” That made more sense.

  “Mrs. Dixon said that she had the dog after their divorce, because Mr. Dixon’s apartment building didn’t allow them. But she didn’t like how much Apollo barked; she said it was bothering their neighbors.” Shelby’s eyes looked indignant now. “She said she was going to have him debarked.”

  I laughed. Shelby had such hilarious terms sometimes.

  “No, it’s a real thing,” Jake said. “It’s a surgery vets perform on dogs when their owners don’t want them to bark. They anesthetize them and go in through their throat and cut their vocal cords. After that, the dogs can never bark loudly again.”

  “What?”

  Shelby nodded. “We learned about it in our animal defense club. Lots of people have it done to their dogs—people whose neighbors don’t like barking, people who have their dogs in shows, or even drug dealers who don’t want their attack dogs to make noise.” She and Jake looked outraged, as they probably had that night. “And sometimes there are terrible complications to the surgery. Dogs can get excess scar tissue, which can interfere with their breathing. They can die.”

  I rubbed my arms where the hair stood up on my skin. “Well, that’s not a very nice thing,” I said inadequately.

  “We didn’t think so, either. And we had heard things about her and dogs before. She didn’t like them. One time a little dog bit her on the ankle—it didn’t even break the skin—and she demanded that the owners put it to sleep. They had to give the dog away to avoid it.”

  Shelby’s eyes flashed with the special fervor of teen ire. “We started telling Mrs. Dixon all the reasons we thought it was inhumane and she shouldn’t debark Apollo. She got all snooty and said we should stay out of it and shut up. That’s when Jake got
mad.” Shelby turned to her boyfriend with a mixture of awe and pride. “He yelled at her.”

  Jake shook his head. “I didn’t yell, exactly. I just said her dog couldn’t speak up for himself, so we were speaking for him. I said that it was a cruel and unnecessary procedure that deprived her dog of his voice and identity, and it was selfish. Her face got all red, and she said I should mind my own business.”

  They were quiet for a minute, neither of them meeting my eyes.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t mind your own business.”

  Jake’s brown eyes met mine. “I said that someone should hurt her the way that she was planning to hurt her dog, and then maybe she’d think twice about doing it.”

  “Oy.”

  “Yeah. And, like, an hour later she was dead.”

  I sighed. “So I’m guessing you didn’t share this story with Detective Parker.”

  Shelby shook her head fiercely. “No! Because then he might think Jake was a violent person, or that he killed Mrs. Dixon!!”

  I turned to Jake. “Did you kill Mrs. Dixon? Did you put poison in that chili?”

  His face was white with shock. “No! I barely could believe I stood up to her. I would never hurt anyone, and I would never normally talk like that to an adult. I just—I was picturing her dog, and feeling so mad. . . .”

  My glance moved to Mick, who was looking at me with his wise gold eyes and smiling while Jake massaged his neck. Mick loved barking, especially when he saw other dogs. I always thought of it as a kind of greeting, as though he were calling out to friends (or enemies). He had a few different vocalizations: a big, throaty bark for those who seemed threatening; a playful bark that he reserved for the dog park and various people he met on our walks; a little yip that sometimes escaped him if I took too long to feed him; and then his “eating sound,” which was an appreciative little moan he sometimes made into his bowl. Cam called it his “nom-nom noise.” Mick’s voice was a key part of his personality, and I couldn’t imagine taking it from him.

  “It’s good that you have things you believe in, Jake. You don’t have to suppress those just because an older person tells you to do so. I think it’s noble that you stood up for animals, and for Apollo.”