Chili Con Corpses (19 page)

“Wait a minute,” Bennett countered. “We’ve got no idea where Gary was when Parker was killed. I highly doubt the cops have checked
his
alibi either.”

“But Gary couldn’t have doubled as Mr. Sneed,” James reminded the group. “He’s too short.”

Gillian drained her cup in three gulps. “I’m more confused than ever!” she wailed and then flopped back onto the sofa. James felt the same way.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Lindy glanced at her watch. “Our powwow time is up. I can see two teachers from Blue Ridge High outside and four more coming up the walk.”

“Just keep your eyes and ears open,” Lucy ordered. “I’ll fill McClellan in on what we’ve learned and see if he’ll share any new information with me. Since he and his men found that missing boy and returned him to his family safe and sound, he ought to have plenty of free time to help us solve
our
case.”

“Wait just a minute!” Murphy frowned as Lindy moved to open the door. “
I’m
the one who’s been in touch with McClellan since day one. Parker was
my
friend, so
I’ll
relay our recent discoveries to the sergeant.”

Lucy scowled at Murphy, and James was certain a catfight was about to erupt. Fortunately, Lindy had enough sense to put an end to any more arguments by inviting her co-workers inside.

A half a dozen women of all ages burst into Lindy’s house, accepted tiaras, and squealed with delight over the festive balloons and streamers. Soon, a dozen party guests were eating and drinking as though they had lined up at a trough. Principal Chavez had also appeared and didn’t seem to be paying Lindy any more attention than any other members of his faculty. As a result, Lindy alternated between smiling in front of the teachers and sulking in the presence of the supper club members.

Sergeant McClellan sauntered in at half past nine, wearing jeans and a maroon sweater, but even if he weren’t the tallest man in the room, his authoritative presence would prevent him from ever blending in. Murphy allowed him to fill a plate and pour himself a cup of 7UP before leading him off to a quiet corner of the kitchen. As they did their best to whisper over the sounds of salsa music blaring from a boom box in the living room, their heads close together as though they were exchanging endearments, they noticed Colin and Dwight arrive and join the partygoers.

They had not entered at the same time, but James watched them closely as they shook hands and held a short, polite conversation. Eventually, a cute blonde in a beaded sheath struck up a flirtation with Colin and dragged him reluctantly away to dance with her in the living room.

By the time Kinsley and Gary appeared at ten, the party had grown a bit raucous. Few of the supper club members even noticed their arrival.

Lindy was perspiring as she replenished the punch bowl once again. She then arranged a tray of steaming garlicky shrimp onto an empty platter bearing the crumbs of what were once an assemblage of ham croquettes. People flitted in and out of the kitchen, offering to carry out plates refilled with scrumptious food.

“Oh, I completely forgot about the
chili con queso
!” James heard Lindy declare as he searched in her pantry for the garbage can. Turning up the heat on one of her stove burners, she turned to James. “Can you keep an eye on this? I see one of the PE teachers going after the piñata, and I don’t want to break it until just before midnight.”

James took the lid off the stockpot and sniffed. The simmering cheese dip smelled exactly like Milla’s.

“James,” Murphy beckoned from the doorway leading to the hall. McClellan stood like a sequoia behind her. “Join us for a moment. The sergeant plans on checking out Gary Lowe’s alibi. The ones given by our two vets are pretty weak, but there’s no way to prove when they left their offices. Man, my throat is getting hoarse. One second.” She nipped into the kitchen, filled two tumblers with punch, and handed one to McClellan. He smiled at her appreciatively, and James felt a prick of jealousy.

The sergeant took a small sip and grimaced. “All right, I’m going to chat with Ms. Willis and her friend—”

A collective hoot followed by energetic applause eclipsed the remainder of McClellan’s sentence.

Lindy suddenly appeared before the trio, her brown eyes even rounder than usual. “They got married!” she whispered in shock.

“Who?” James asked.

“Gary and Kinsley! Yesterday!” Lindy blinked slowly. “They flew to Vegas Sunday morning and just came back today. Kinsley says they came to the party right from the airport.” She shook her head rapidly as though trying to clear her mind. “I’ve got to get the stuff off the stove.”

James watched Lindy dish
chili con queso
into a half a dozen cereal bowls. She grabbed random guests and ordered them to disperse the dip around the house. She then ripped open bags of tortilla chips and, without bothering to warm them in the oven, dumped them onto paper plates and distributed those as well.

James, Murphy, and McClellan were still absorbing the stunning news.

“Guess there’s no prenup if they went to Vegas,” Murphy mumbled, her expression troubled.

“Wonder if he’s told her about getting fired from Solmes,” James worried as he felt his anger rising. “Of course, that little detail might have hurt his chance of becoming a multimillionaire.”

McClellan handed his full cup of punch to Murphy. “Excuse me, folks. I think I’ll go congratulate the newlyweds.”

As McClellan moved off, James noticed Kinsley heading in their direction, a smile igniting her lovely face. She pointed at the white T-shirt she wore beneath a black blazer. The text, in block letters, read
Bride
. “That’s me. Mrs. Kinsley Lowe. The bride! Crazy, huh?”

Murphy elbowed the frown from James’s mouth and gave Kinsley a brief hug. “Which one of you came up with this wild scheme?” She laughed with forced gaiety.

Kinsley, who was holding one of the bowls of
chili con queso
in one hand and a plastic cup stuffed with tortilla chips in the other, set the bowl on a nearby table and began eating with gusto as she considered Murphy’s question. James had a flashback of the sight of Kinsley at the Custard Cottage, polishing off her double-scoop cone in record time.

“This is
so
good,” she moaned. “I haven’t eaten for hours, so forgive me if I stuff myself in a most unladylike manner. Now, whose idea was it?” She glanced up at the ceiling while searching her memory. “We talked about it a bit when we both lived in New York, but then we broke up because I wanted to lead a slower life. After … the funeral, we came back here and Gary told me that he had quit his job and was ready to live anywhere as long as we could be together. I’d never heard anything so romantic!” She loaded another chip and held it an inch away from her lips. “The whole run-off-to-Vegas-thing was all Gary. I haven’t even had a chance to tell my parents yet!”

She held out the bowl of
chili con queso
to James and Murphy. They both declined and watched in fascinated silence as Kinsley devoured the rest of the dip. “Now I’m thirsty!” she laughed giddily. “I’m going for more punch.”

As soon as Kinsley moved off, Lucy, Bennett, and Gillian gathered in front of James and Murphy. Gillian’s face was shining from the exertion of her unique style of frantic dancing and Bennett’s eyes twinkled as a result of several cups of fiesta punch. Lucy, on the other hand, seemed cross. She continuously tugged on her dress at both ends while casting covert glances at Dwight, Colin, and Gary.

“I can’t believe she married that punk!” she spat over the strains of a mariachi band.

Gillian pushed a cloud of orange hair off her forehead. “Maybe he told her everything and they entered into their union with open hearts and open minds.”

“Damned unlikely,” Bennett muttered.

“What about our other suspects?” Murphy inquired.

Lucy shrugged. “Dwight’s barely spoken to anyone since he’s been here and believe me, more than one of Lindy’s co-workers has tried to bring him out of his shell. He just stands against the wall and glares at Colin.”

“I don’t think he’s crazy about having girls flirt with him only
after
they’ve been shot down by Colin,” Bennett commented.

“Pah!” Lindy spluttered, pushing her way between Bennett and Gillian. “Dwight’s just a wet blanket. Colin’s tried to talk to Dwight a bunch of times, but he keeps getting the brush-off. Believe me, I’ve been watching those two.”

“Yeah, you kind of disappeared for a bit. Were you hiding behind a curtain or somethin’?” Bennett teased.

Surprisingly, Lindy blushed. “Maybe. Come on, it’s time for the piñata.”

Lindy abruptly turned off the stereo to a chorus of boisterous complaints. Ignoring these, she announced Lucy’s triumph and declared that, as the guest of honor, Lucy got to take the first swing at Dora. She then blindfolded Lucy with a festive chartreuse scarf, put a yardstick in her hands, and spun her around three times.

“Now, I took all the pictures off the wall, but try not to knock out anyone’s teeth. I don’t think my insurance covers party hazards.” Lindy backed away. “Vámonos!” she exclaimed. “Hit it, Lucy!”

Lucy took a great swing at the air and clipped the piñata on the foot, but the pink, purple, and yellow papier-mâché creation was tougher than it looked. She took another swing, which landed square on the piñata figure’s rump, but it didn’t break. The crowd began giggling en masse as guest after guest failed to cause even the tiniest of cracks to appear on the piñata.

It was at this point that James decided to take a visual stock of the three suspects. As he glanced around, he was shocked to see that Kinsley lay draped across Lindy’s sofa, her head in Gary’s lap as he watched images of Times Square flash on the muted television. Kinsley’s eyes were closed and it looked as though she had fallen asleep. Gary absently stroked a strand of her blonde hair and seemed utterly content. A small smile uplifted the corners of his mouth as he noticed his wedding band catch a glint of light from the disco ball twirling from the ceiling of Lindy’s living room.

Colin was next in line to take a whack at the piñata, but Dwight was nowhere to be seen. In fact, McClellan appeared to be absent as well. James did a quick walkthrough of the downstairs and then stepped out into the freezing night by way of Lindy’s kitchen door. He carried a full bag of trash with him and made a big show of stuffing it into a dented metal can on the side of the house as he scanned the street. There was Dwight, hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat, walking briskly toward his car.

Seconds later, he was gone. But just as James was about to return to the warmth of the house, he noticed another car pull out and head in the same direction as Dwight’s Volvo wagon. He watched until the taillights disappeared around a curve in the road and then froze in fear as a figure detached itself from the shadow of an ancient maple in the front yard of the house next door. The man, for James was certain that no woman possessed the looming and powerful presence of this specter, stepped into the circle of light created by Lindy’s lamppost, and James exhaled in relief. It was only McClellan.

Back inside, shouts of triumph followed by exclamations and the clinking of hard objects striking the wood floor indicated that someone had finally released the contents of the piñata. In the living room, the sound for the TV had been restored and Dick Clark was tapping on his expensive watch and gesturing at the ball behind him.

“In just a few minutes, folks, that ball, weighing over one thousand pounds and made entirely out of Waterford crystal, is going to drop.” He plastered an expectant grin on his ageless face. “Better get close to the person you’d like to kiss, as we’ll be starting the countdown following these messages.”

Dick Clark was replaced by a car commercial showing an attractive yet rather smug-looking woman expertly fielding one hairpin turn after another.

“I don’t think there’s been an original car commercial in years,” James heard Lucy comment from behind him. “Did you see what Lindy put in the piñata? It was stuffed with candy and little bottles of tequila! They’ll be talking about this party at Blue Ridge High for years!”

James mumbled something unintelligible, dismayed to see that Murphy was pouring champagne into two plastic flutes. She glanced up as she poured and smiled as their eyes met. Feeling a tightening in his gut, James searched about for an excuse that would prevent him from being sandwiched between his ex-girlfriend and his current girlfriend at the stroke of midnight.

“Please,” he uttered under his breath in a panic. No luck. Dick Clark’s porcelain veneers were once again glowing on the television screen.

“Hope you’ve got your champagne handy, because we’re just thirty seconds away from a new year!” he chirped.

At that moment, as Murphy was crossing from the kitchen into the living room and Lucy was yanking her dress into place and preparing to plant a romantic kiss on James’s lips, Gary made an attempt to wake his slumbering bride.

“Kinsley,” he said, lowly at first, but loud enough for James to hear. He repeated her name twice more, and then tried to push her to a sitting position. She immediately slumped back onto the couch, falling facedown into the cushions. “Kinsley!” Gary’s voice held a note of alarm as he rolled his new wife over and tapped her cheeks with the palm of his hand.