Red Hot Murder: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (20 page)

All Angie’s enjoyment at working in the controlled chaos of a busy kitchen fizzled when LaVerne Merritt entered.

Normally, Angie liked the pace of action and the chatter with other cooks as she worked. The cookhouse bustled even more than usual with several young Mexican women Dolores had hired to help. They dashed about, following Dolores’s instructions to the nth degree.

Angie and Dolores had been taking a great interest in each other’s preparations. Dolores was busy cooking vast quantities of barbecue sauce for the meat, a cauldron of chili, baked beans, ham hocks, mashed and boiled potatoes, plus dips, a huge green salad, potato salad, cakes, cookies, and pies. She even made her own tortillas and bread. It all smelled quite wonderful, and Angie had the suspicion she would be eating more of Dolores’s cookout fare than her own.

“Something smells like it’s burning.” LaVerne’s nose was high in the air as she put two large shopping bags on the counter.

Angie and Dolores made no comment. The kitchen helpers bent low over their respective workstations.

“What you cooking today?” Dolores asked.

“Since
some
people have told me they don’t like my special recipes, I’ve changed my plans.” LaVerne pressed her lips to thin slivers. “Why knock myself out trying to catch gecko if nobody will appreciate it? Besides, Clarissa phoned and said I was to cook only simple food. I have excellent recipes for macaroni and cheese, tuna noodle casserole, deviled eggs, and succotash. That’s what I’ll prepare.”

“Sounds yummy,” Angie said with a smirk. LaVerne gave her a withering glare.

LaVerne took over the largest cutting board in the room and unpacked her supplies. She looked hurt.

“Look, I’m sorry for last evening,” Angie said. “It was rude of me.”

“Rude? Crass is more like it!” LaVerne harrumphed, and adjusted her bifocals. “Don’t worry. I know jealousy when I hear it.”

“Jealousy?” Angie bit her lip. She wasn’t going to argue. She continued to work.

LaVerne glanced smugly her way, then put on a pot of water for the elbow macaroni. As she began to remove the shells from two dozen hard-boiled eggs, she glanced at the pureed butternut squash Angie was scooping from the blender. “What’s that? It looks like baby puke! Or worse.”

“It’s going to be a squash timbale—a custard.”

LaVerne snorted. “Squash? That’s so boring!”

“Not the way I make it!” Angie reached for some paprika.

“It won’t stand up at all to my deviled eggs.” She began to slice the eggs in half and scoop the yolks into a bowl. “And what’s that other thing? Mashed beans? Why is all your food ground up? Do you think people in Jackpot don’t have teeth?”

Angie’s eyes narrowed. She pulled some cloves off a head of garlic. “It’s called dal.”

“That’s not what
I’d
call it.” LaVerne smirked.

“The best thing about today,” Dolores said, “is that all the bickering around the hacienda should end.”

Yeah, right,
Angie thought, with a glower at LaVerne.

“Of course, if Lionel gets kicked off,” LaVerne said, as she took bottles of dry thyme and parsley from Angie’s workspace and sprinkled some onto her eggs, “he might bump off Clarissa and Joey and then you wouldn’t have to worry about them, either.” She chuckled wickedly. “I’m hearing rumors, though, that there was something between Hal and Teresa. I can’t imagine that’s the case. No one could have kept such a thing a secret!”

“I could,” Dolores murmured.

Both Angie and LaVerne faced her. She looked up, as if surprised that they’d heard. “Well, why not?” she asked indignantly. “It made my boss look very foolish. An old man like that—he should have been ashamed!”

“I wonder if Lionel knew about it as well,” LaVerne mused. “If so, he might have worried that Hal would write her in and him out of his will.”

Angie took her spices back.

“Lionel didn’t know,” Dolores said, her face contorted with disgust.

“Well, you found out!” LaVerne said. “Are you so much more clever than Lionel?”

“I cleaned Mr. Edwards’s house—changed his sheets. There wasn’t much he could hide from me.” Dolores’s words were quietly spoken and she turned away. Still, Dolores’s irritation at LaVerne came through to Angie even though she was busy guarding her coriander and cumin.

“Don’t be so sure about Lionel. He doesn’t miss much.” LaVerne wouldn’t let the conversation drop, despite the shell game she was playing with Angie’s sea salt.

“You’re saying he’s not as dumb as he seems?” Angie asked, grabbing the salt once she finally spotted where LaVerne had hidden it. She was slicing the salmon into thin slabs. Afterward, she’d cover a slab with curled leeks, roll it up like a pinwheel, add cracked black pepper, and cut it into individual portions to be sautéed.

“Dumb?” LaVerne grimaced. Her macaroni was cooked, and she was mixing it with mild cheddar cheese. “He’s not dumb at all. Dumb is people who think they’re great cooks and don’t even have a job.”

“I beg your pardon!” Angie put down her knife.

“Well, you never talk about a job,” LaVerne said. “Most good chefs I’ve ever heard of do something with their ability.”

“I’ve had lots of jobs!” Angie cried.

“And obviously lost them all.”

Angie seethed. “You have your nerve criticizing
my talent! With the ingredients you use in your so-called ’special’ dishes, you’re lucky you haven’t killed anybody!”

“I take great care with my cooking!”

“If that’s the case, talk about a major waste of time!” Angie glared at LaVerne. She picked up a knife, and continued slicing the salmon.

LaVerne glared back so fiercely her weak eyelid no longer drooped. She pushed her sleeves up past her elbows, grabbed a huge wooden spoon, and began stirring her concoction. “I can’t understand why anyone would be making fish at a barbecue!”

“Clarissa wanted it,” Angie said. “And my seared cracked black pepper salmon roulade with cucumber sauce is prized by many.”

LaVerne rolled her eyes. “This is cattle country. It figures you and Clarissa would get it wrong. Birds of a feather.”

Angie decided to ignore her. “I learned recently,” she said to Dolores as she began to work on the stuffing, “that Hal might have been involved in helping illegals across the border.”

The kitchen suddenly turned absolutely silent. Dolores froze. The kitchen helpers stopped chopping, mixing, and stirring the various dishes. Making no comment, Dolores quietly picked up a knife and began to chop more celery. The young women warily went back to work.

“If being involved with illegals is what killed him,” LaVerne chirped up, “a whole lot of Arizona’s population would be dead.” She caught Angie’s eye and held it firmly as she whispered, “You-don’t-want-to-talk-about-illegals-here.”

Angie got the message. She glanced from Dolores to the kitchen helpers who quietly continued their cooking duties.

Eventually, Angie started to breathe again.

She and LaVerne, eyeing each other from time to time, turned their concentration to their dishes.

As Angie worked with professional alacrity, knives clattered, spices flew, and bowls clanked. LaVerne did the same, struggling to work even faster than Angie.

Angie noticed, and began to stir and mix her ingredients at breakneck speed. LaVerne did all she could to keep up.

They tussled over the Kitchenaid mixer, swiped spices, sniped at smells, tastes, and the other’s lack of perfection when mincing, slicing, and chopping. Accusations flew.

“Too foreign.”

“Too plebeian.”

“Too much garlic.”

“Too much butter.”

“Too hot.”

“Too bland.”

In the end, as Angie slumped in a chair, exhausted, she was sure the gunfight at the OK Corral had nothing on them.

Merry Belle had roared out of Yuma in a blind fury, her mind coming up with a thousand ways for Buster and Junior’s slow, painful deaths. She considered feeding them feet-first through a wood chipper, but rejected it as too humane. Looking down at the speedometer, she realized that she was close to setting a land speed record for a
Hummer and slowed down. She wasn’t about to let the two off the hook by killing herself.

Ahead, lonely and dilapidated in the desolate desert landscape, was a gas station with an attached diner. Merry Belle pulled over and strode inside. The look on her face plunged its occupants into an uneasy silence. She felt better after a couple of bacon cheeseburgers, an order of fries, and a vanilla milk shake ordered “for the road.” Self-discipline restrained her from the pie. She did have to leave some room for the cookout.

To the great relief of the diner’s patrons and staff, she soon trudged back to the Hummer. There, she raised Buster on the car radio.

She greeted him with, “You’re dead meat!”

“I already told you I’m sorry! I know I did a bad thing.” He sounded on the verge of blubbering. “But I was just curious and then I nearly got caught and ran, and then got to drinking and didn’t hear the alarm and—”

“Quit jabbering! I’ve been to Yuma. You let Junior wear your uniform!”

After a long pause, Buster said, “I didn’t catch that. I got interference on the radio.” He began tapping the mouthpiece hard, causing great bursts of sound to pop against Merry Belle’s eardrums.

“I’m going to interfere with your life expectancy,” she roared. “Cut that out! You know damned well what I said.”

“Junior didn’t do nothing wrong,” he whined. “The wimpy clerk must’ve told you a bunch of lies.”

“Damn it, Buster, you’re dumber than dumb,”
Merry Belle yelled. “If Junior didn’t tell you, then how’d you know the clerk’s wimpy?”

There was a sullen silence.

“You there, Buster?”

“Yes, Aunt Merry Belle,” he replied meekly.

“Don’t call me that! You’re disowned!”

“But I told you I was sorry,” Buster cried.

“Listen up. I’m more than halfway home. I better see your sorry face in my office when I get back. And you better have some answers. Don’t you even try to lie! You’re too dumb.”

More silence.

“You heard me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You be there. And what was that you said about nearly getting caught?”

Buster croaked, “Ten-four,” and hung up.

“Ten-four, my ass!” Merry Belle slammed the handset down and in a cloud of dust and gravel sped away from the diner.

Buster stared, confused, at the radiophone.

It seemed Aunt Merry Belle only cared that he’d helped Junior. She didn’t seem to mind at all that he’d broken into Angie’s bungalow to study how her clothes were put together.

He’d been so engrossed in the way darts had been added, seams finished, and hems unevenly stitched, so that they fell in a more interesting flow than if they’d been sewn straight, that he’d been startled when he looked out the window and saw Paavo’s SUV parked. He was so worried about being caught, his hand slipped as he was shutting a drawer and the clasp on his wristwatch snagged
an Emilio Pucci scarf. Then, when he pulled it out, the expensive scarf tore. He didn’t know what to do, so he grabbed it, stuffed it in his pocket, and ran like the dickens.

Maybe he should have simply confessed.

But nobody in Jackpot understood his interest in clothes design, and he knew better than to try to explain. They’d call him weird, or gay, or both. The unfortunate thing was that he was also realistic enough to know that nothing would ever come of this enthusiasm. As much as he might want to be the next Joseph Abboud or Yves St. Laurent, deep in his heart he knew he not only lacked the money for classes and the brains for study, but—truth be told—the talent and imagination as well. So, Jackpot’s deputy he’d remain.

And his secret passion would stay just that. A secret.

All that aside, it seemed Junior was what had upset his aunt. Buster hadn’t seen any harm in lending a friend his uniform. He was surprised more people didn’t want to borrow it. Its maroon trim made it pretty. He’d been honored when Junior had asked.

Maybe that was his calling—to design great uniforms! He should look into it, matter of fact. He knew more about law enforcement uniforms than most designers, that was for sure.

Now, though, unless he was mistaken, Junior had done something that was going to cause him trouble.

The more he thought about it, the more nervous he became, and the more certain that he didn’t want to face Merry Belle alone.

Finally, shaking and desperate for help, he reached for his cell phone.

By the time Angie stepped out of the cookhouse, people from town were crowded onto the plaza.

The workmen had completely transformed it. Long serving tables were arranged inside a large tent. A smaller tent served as a makeshift bar with a table laden with liquor bottles and glassware, and beer in ice-filled washtubs. A small combo of fiddlers and guitarists played jaunty tunes. Flags, banners, and balloons were attached to any available space on the hacienda’s veranda pillars. Propped up on the veranda was a large, sepia-toned portrait of Hal Edwards as a handsome, smiling young man, casually leaning back against a barn, one leg bent and his foot on the wood.

It reminded Angie of the dream she’d had when she first arrived, before she’d come to know the town and so many of its people. Looking at the poster, at the joy and promise in it, she couldn’t help but feel sorrow at the way it had all turned out, both for Hal and those whose lives he’d touched.