With deft precision, Fred straightened his display of gift baskets and cheese balls into straight rows. “Ah, my best customer.” He chucked Lenny under the chin.
“How’s business?” I asked.
“Yip, yip.” Lenny’s straw hat slid down over one ear as he raised up on his back legs to paw the air.
“If only all my customers were as enthusiastic.” He opened his palm and presented a morsel of summer sausage, which Lenny politely swallowed in one gulp.
“Store closed today?” I asked.
His incredulous gaze made me squirm. “My sister Ilse is manning the shop this afternoon.”
Patti pointed out a small gift basket perfect for Senora Mari. Throughout the year, my abuela cooked chorizo, but her guilty pleasure was hickory-smoked delicacies from the German descendants of local Texans.
“Why sausage and cheese?” Goth Girl asked. “Is it a family thing?”
He lowered his wire-rimmed glasses. “Ilse’s idea of a . . .” He pursed his lips. “What do you young people call it?” His expression cleared. “A side hustle.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Uh-huh.” I caught Lenny attempting to lick a sealed package of smoked gouda and moved him to my other arm. Ever persistent, he stuck his head under my arm and lunged for a sample of cherry venison jerky.
“No!” Patti assumed the role of alpha dog with the flutter of an eyelash.
“Oh, let him try one—someone’s got to.” He tossed Lenny a tidbit of jerky.
“Yip.”
“You’re welcome, canine.”
Feeling guilty, I purchased the smoked Gouda gift box. “Too bad your nontraditional chili didn’t win first place this year. I thought it was yummy.” It was odd that Mueller didn’t appear to be in a particularly bad mood. Before this year’s ICA-sponsored event, the locals competed against one another mostly for bragging rights, but if Mueller didn’t win, I steered clear of his icy manner and accusatory stare for at least a good month, even giving his table at Milagro to Anthony.
He frowned. “Your Uncle Eddie’s venison chili may have won last year, but this year I would have ground him into chili powder.”
With a smile, Patti tried a sample of brie. “Too bad he couldn’t enter this year to prove you wrong.”
“Of course not. The organizer of such an event must remain impartial.” With a little frown, he took a flowered dish towel and wiped the cutting board to clear off the crumbs Patti had left behind. “And he executed his plan with precision, no matter what members of the town council say.”
I studied Mueller’s suddenly animated face and bright eyes. “What are they saying?” He was a terrible gossip, and a long-time, dedicated member of Broken Boot’s town council.
After a brief hesitation, he withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and began to clean his glasses. “The usual. Anytime there’s new blood on the council there’s a lot of Get rid of them and Impeach the no-good varmint.”
Patti’s pierced eyebrow rose. “I can’t imagine Mayor Cogburn, or anyone else on the council, using that word.”
He chuckled. “Nor I. But it was a good excuse to say the word varmint.”
My heart sank. Uncle Eddie had put in long hours of worry and months of planning to impress that hard-to-please group of naysayers. “It wasn’t his fault someone was murdered before the event could even get started.”
Mueller replaced his glasses and lowered them to the tip of his nose, the better to give me a hard look. “Holding a charity chili cook-off was a top-notch idea—even if I didn’t win. But asking the council to admit the event wasn’t ruined by the presence of an ambulance, the deputy cruisers, and officers questioning the contestants . . . ist eine ganz andere Frage.”
I nodded sagely as if German were my second language and not something I’d heard only in the musical Cabaret.
Patti patted me condescendingly. “Let me translate. They’re never going to let Eddie forget it.”
“Is that really what you said?”
He gave Patti a wink. “Nein.”
“Will you keep me informed? I don’t want Uncle Eddie kicked off the council before he can prove himself to those old . . .”
“Farts.” With a flourish of her napkin, Patti wiped a speck of brie from her mouth.
Mueller’s gaze narrowed. “Would you like a ribbon for your new gouda?” He held up a large red ribbon that cost five dollars. It was an ordinary bow made of glittery ribbon, but I was willing to cough up the dough for the inside skinny on the town council members and their opinion of my uncle.
I held out five ones. “Have we got ourselves a deal?”
With a practiced hand, he grabbed the money, beribboned the gift box, and handed me my purchase. “More than one council member has sampled the gouda today.” He glanced up and down the sidewalk as if expecting them to pop out from the alleys and storefronts like a flash mob, and then he leaned across the table. “One even bragged about derailing the whole event.”
My ears started to burn. “The chili cook-off?”
He shrugged. “That is what I understood her to mean.”
“Her?”
Again, he zipped his lips, only this time he placed the imaginary key in the breast pocket of his plaid shirt.
When a couple approached wearing matching How the West Was Won tees, Patti, Lenny, and I slipped away.
“Some bribe.” Patti glanced over her shoulder. “He wouldn’t even give you a name.”
“How many women do you think there are on the town council?”
She looked at me and I looked at her. “Two,” we said in unison.
Farther down the block, in front of Barnum and Hailey’s Emporium, we found Dani O’Neal and her kids.
The small girl held out a baby doll to her mother. “Make it go potty,” she demanded.
“We’re not buying nothing, so forget it.” Dani yanked the doll from her daughter’s hands and returned it to the display table filled with toys and novelty items.
I turned abruptly, hoping for a fast getaway.
“Too late.” Patti took my arm before I could step into oncoming traffic—anything to avoid what was coming. “You’re on her radar.”
“What’s it
