Here Today, Gone Tamale (10 page)

Dayssy stepped away and wiped her eyes again. “We have to go.” She whistled, and immediately her siblings stopped their game and ran for their bikes.

“Do you have money for groceries?” I asked as we exited the alley, heading for the street.

She nodded, but kept her eyes averted.

“Who is helping you? Family? Friends?”

Stroking her sister's hair, she shook her head.

“Is Lily working?”

With a sudden grin, Dayssy answered. “She goes to school and takes care of us.”

We reached the street to find the red-haired man from the registration table handing out numbers. Several of the entrants had already tied them to their handlebars.

With a quick hug from their sister, the two young children ran forward to receive their numbers.

If I didn't leave now, the tamale-eating contest would be delayed and my neck would be on Aunt Linda's cutting board.
“You tell Lily to come see me at the restaurant,” I said. “We're shorthanded without Anthony, and she can work in his place.”

Dayssy's eyes brightened. “I will tell her, but now we must go.” She pointed to where the children stood in line, proudly displaying their bicycles.

“Good luck,” I cried, waving madly to her sister and brother.

I'd neglected to ask them their names, but it would have to wait until next time. Tamales were calling my name.

I hurried to the registration booth, but after a lengthy discussion with the elderly volunteers there, I wasn't convinced help was on its way. I tried to be gracious, but the more I talked, the more flustered they became. It took at least five minutes for the head volunteer to find the right channel for the maintenance crew on the walkie-talkie, and another five to communicate what I needed.

Chiding myself for taking the whole tamale-eating contest way too seriously, I marched back to Milagro past a collection of antique cars festooned in red, white, and blue streamers only to find, much to my surprise, almost the entire festival committee seated around our long tables. Melanie and her husband, rancher P.J. Pratt, were smiling and waving at everybody as if they hadn't seen them in a month of Sundays. Mayor Cogburn walked up right behind me, hung his sport coat across the back of his white folding chair, and reached over to buss his wife's cheek. The only two committee members not in attendance ran their businesses with very little staff. Even Elaine of Elaine's Pies couldn't fault Bubba's BBQ and Fredericksburg Antiques for choosing to man their forts on one of the busiest days of the year.

“Wait for us!” Ryan and Hillary ran down the sidewalk hand in hand, trying not to take out a mother pushing a twin stroller. My handsome ex was laughing at Hillary, trying to make her move more quickly. Though not exactly dragging her five-inch heels, the beauty queen was moving in a much slower gear, her lips pursed tight as if holding in a string of curses.

With a big smile, Uncle Eddie made his way down the tables of contestants, shaking hands and greeting each one. He raised the microphone to begin the proceedings, and everyone winced in pain as the speakers squealed at an ear-splitting decibel. Offering an apologetic grin, he stepped farther away from the amplifier and tried again.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said with a sweeping gesture to the crowd, “thank you for joining us for Milagro's Fifth Annual Tamale Eating Contest, benefitting the Big Bend County Children's Home. We would like to thank the Wild Wild West Festival committee, many of whom are sitting right here before you, for stepping up, or should I say sitting down, to raise money for a good cause.” The crowd chuckled with good humor. Again, his arm swung wide. “Let's get this party started.” The crowd applauded with enthusiasm as the waitstaff delivered the plates of tamales in front of each contestant. Uncle Eddie raised a hand, fingers spread wide. “Five . . . four . . . three . . .” he cried, lowering a finger with each number, “two . . . eat!”

Now that the contest was underway, Hillary and the other female participants were taking noticeably smaller and smaller bites of the tamales set before them. The men continued on with gusto even as they turned gray around the gills. The only one who looked like he was having a grand ole time, like Father Allen on his way to bingo, was Ty Honeycutt.

“Why is he here?” Senora Mari demanded, not caring who overheard.

Pursing her lips, Aunt Linda answered in a lower volume. “I heard he's trying to come up with money to bury Dixie's body, once the autopsy's complete.”

“But surely he knows we're not offering a cash prize,” I said.

“Oh, he knows.” My aunt snapped her fingers, making sure she had our full attention. “But word is he's been losing everything at the gambling tables, including money to eat on.”

Maybe the gambling tables had been hard on him, so hard
he'd been tempted to eat his shoe leather. I snuck a look at his boots and found the pair on his feet new and highly polished. Someone, either Lady Luck or a lady from The Cat's Meow, had helped him buy the latest ostrich Lucchese boots or I was a native New Yorker.

One of my jobs had been to place buckets under the table for the sole purpose of giving folks something to spit in if needed. Yuck, yuck, and double yuck. So when someone began to splutter and cough, I knew we were prepared. I rushed over in time to hear Elaine make a horrible sound, somewhere between a cat upchucking a hairball and a humpback whale. She raised a napkin, delicately, to her lips, and tried to smile with her lips closed, but her expression looked more like one of those jack o' lanterns left to rot in the sun. Suddenly she spit into her napkin and turned bright red. She lifted a hand to her lips and pulled, and pulled, until something fell out of her mouth.

And it wasn't a tamale. It took me a few seconds to stifle my gag reflex, but then I recognized it. As Elaine pulled the chain, small figures began to pop out from between her teeth. Small carved horses.

The crowd, all thirty of them, gasped. “She's lost her teeth,” a boy shouted.

“She's coughed up her lungs,” an old geezer added.

Elaine spotted me first. “Help me, for pity's sake.” Ty, sitting next to her, leaned over for a better look at the necklace. “Give me that water.” He grabbed her half-f water glass and dropped the necklace into it, and then he began to rub away the tamale remains. “This belonged to my aunt. This is one of her designs.”

All I could picture was the horse imprint on Dixie's neck as she lay dead behind the Dumpster of my family's restaurant. “Don't anyone move,” I said, trying to sound official. “Not until the sheriff gets
here.”

Uncle Eddie had already pressed the button on the sound system. It made a loud squeal. “Sheriff, we've found the murder weapon. Sheriff Wallace, we've found the murder weapon.”

Geez, what a great way to let the cat out of the bag.

There was a loud crash, and Elaine fell backwards along with her chair, plate, and all the tamales she had left to eat.

“Is she dead?” someone shouted.

“Mom!” Suellen cried from somewhere behind me. “Someone help her!”

I jumped onto the platform and tossed Elaine's chair off the platform so I could get a good look at her. Maybe it was the time I'd spent on the phone with the 911 operator, or maybe it was the CPR training I'd received as a lifeguard in high school, but I didn't hesitate this time.

Elaine had fallen to her left, so I gently turned her on her back. Her lips were the color of the blue blotch pansies I'd grown on my balcony in Austin, and, aw, sugar snaps, she'd stopped breathing. I bent close to her nose and mouth, and confirmed that no air was coming from either.

“Someone call the ambulance!” I heard Aunt Linda yell somewhere in the background. A woman's voice called out, “Where's Silas?” and part of my brain remembered the retired EMS worker was scheduled to take the morning shift at the first aid station.

“He was headed toward the BBQ booth about ten minutes ago,” Felicia said in my ear.

“Go find him!” As she slipped away, I started praying.

Elaine was bluer than before. I tilted back her chin and checked her mouth for obstructions, and my fingers brushed against something that was definitely not supposed to be there.

Aunt Linda was at my shoulder, nearly jumping up and down. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?” Then I realized it wasn't her, but the mayor who was talking. “Remember our reputation. Stop talking about someone choking to death through the sound system.”

The sound system cut out with a loud squeal, nearly blowing out my left eardrum. Though my nose wrinkled in disgust, I had to get that thing out of her throat. I got a tighter grip on whatever it was and slowly pulled it out. I was scared to death it would fall from my fingers, straight down her windpipe, and choke her for sure. But no such calamity ensued. Once the object hit my hand, I knew what it was. One of the horses from Dixie's necklace was determined to choke Elaine as well.

In spite of Uncle Eddie, Aunt Linda, and Senora Mari all side coaching me on CPR techniques, it took merely two rounds of puffing air into Elaine's mouth and pumping her chest the correct amount of times for her to cough the life back into her well-preserved body.

As she struggled to sit up, Suellen nudged me out of the way. “Momma, what happened?”

At first Elaine tried to push Suellen away, but the older woman was too weak to sit up on her own. Instead she dropped her head to her oldest daughter's shoulder.

With a cry of relief, Uncle Eddie and Aunt Linda threw their arms around me.

“Such a smart girl,” Senora Mari crooned, and patted my head.

“Are you okay?” Suellen asked her mother.

Elaine coughed, closing her eyes as if in pain. “I will be . . . no thanks to them.” She opened her eyes and glared at us.

Through the crowd, a beacon of steady self-assurance made his way toward us, and I sighed in relief.

Lightfoot knelt next to Elaine, where she rested weak as a child in the arms of her own offspring. “I've called the ambulance, Mrs. Burnett. They'll be here any minute.”

Weakly she moved her head back and forth. “I . . . don't need an ambulance.” Again, the committee chairwoman was wracked with a fit of coughing.

I hurried to the cooler and grabbed a water bottle.

“Get her some water, somebody,” Lightfoot commanded, even as I unscrewed the lid and placed the bottle in Elaine's hands.

The corners of the stoic deputy's mouth lifted in an almost smile as he nodded his approval.

Slowly Elaine lifted the bottle to her lips.

“Let me help you, Momma.”

“I can do it myself,” Elaine argued. “And I don't need any ambulance.”

As his phone buzzed, Lightfoot rose to his feet. “They're only a block away. The crowd's slowing them down.”

“Where's the real sheriff?” Senora Mari demanded, by way of greeting.

The deputy responded with a smile. “Sheriff Wallace is taking care of a dispute over at the Feed and Supply.”

“Is Patti okay?” My independent-minded friend ran the place on her own for long stretches at a time.

“She's fine.” He turned to Mayor Cogburn and P.J. as if Patti was of no consequence. “What's all this about someone
finding the murder weapon?” His tone was casual, but I noticed how his hawk-eyed gaze searched the crowd, taking in strangers and townsfolk alike.

“Elaine was nearly killed by the necklace that strangled Dixie.” Felicia Cogburn twisted her own expensive charm necklace first one way and then the other.

“Who says she was murdered by a necklace?” P.J. Pratt demanded, bowing out his chest like a rooster in a hen house. “The sheriff's department hasn't released any details.”

Felicia looked helplessly at her husband. “Uh, I don't rightly know.”

“There it is.” I pointed to the greasy necklace where it rested on the table below the warming pan of tamales.

“No one touch it.” Lightfoot pulled a piece of foil from a nearby box and carefully wrapped the necklace into a neat package and placed it in his breast pocket.

“And here's the horse she choked on.” I said, handing him the offending stone wrapped in a napkin.

“I'm going to be sick to my stomach,” Elaine whispered. “Please let me go inside for a few minutes.”

Aunt Linda and Senora Mari each took one of Elaine's hands and gently lifted her to her feet. “We'll get you out of this heat.” Aunt Linda nodded at Suellen. “Let's take it slow.”

Lightfoot started to ask a question, but my aunt stopped him with a glare that had made stronger men pause.

One of the bystanders who remained called out, “Who won the contest?”

P.J. shoved in his chair. “Forget about it.”

“Aw,” said some of the tourists, expressing their disappointment. The crowd began to murmur.

Uncle Eddie waved his hands to gain everyone's attention. “We can still sort all this out and declare a winner.” He began to count the tamales that remained on each participant's plate.

“That ain't fair.” P.J. had meat sauce down the front of his plaid shirt. “How do we know that no one kept eating while she distracted the judges?”

Give me a break. Who really cared at this point?

Ryan stepped forward, forcing a laugh. “We can trust Eddie not to cheat, right?”

The crowd grew quiet, watching the show.

“Ryan's right,” Hillary said as she took her coach's arm. “Mr. Martinez wouldn't cheat a fly.”

In a fit of pique, P.J. slapped his Stetson on the side of his jeans. “Don't matter none 'cause I won.”

“Look again, boys,” Ty Honeycutt called out, gesturing to his own plate.

Unbelievably, Ryan straightened his shoulders as if readying himself for a round of fisticuffs. “Eddie, come right over here and count mine if you want to see who won.”

At that moment, the beauty queen winked at me. She spun toward the crowd. “Who thinks this handsome man won?” she asked, pointing to Ryan.

A few souls clapped in response. A couple of college girls in West Texas blue-and-orange jerseys called out, “Go, coach!”

With a frown at Hillary, my uncle proceeded to count all twelve contestants' remaining tamales. He counted P.J.'s last. “Congratulations,” he said, wheeling toward the irate rancher. “You won.” Uncle Eddie walked over to the makeshift podium and returned with an envelope. “Here's your prize.” He waved it back and forth over his head with a flourish. “You've won a dozen tamales every day for the next month, courtesy of Milagro.”

The crowd applauded, but their hearts weren't in it.

“Hold on a minute.” Lightfoot stepped in front of the crowd. “We need everyone to stay right where you are until I take your statements.”

“Deputy, what's going on here?” Sheriff Wallace appeared at the back of the crowd and started pushing his way through. “Excuse me, folks.”

I tried to maneuver close to him to ask him about the dispute at the Feed and Supply, but it was impossible. He and
his deputies disappeared inside for a brief face-to-face and then started interviewing witnesses. I tried to overhear their sessions, but whenever Wallace saw me sidling closer he sent for another round of Dr Peppers, sweet tea, and black coffee.

With an ear-popping squeal from the sound system, Mayor Cogburn announced, “Come one, come all. It's your turn to fall. The three-legged race for kids of all ages will be starting in the field across from the depot in three minutes. Don't miss it.” Some of the spectators who had waited to share their side of the choking tale wandered off.

“But Mayor Cogburn, the deputy told them to stay put.” I wanted law enforcement to have the opportunity to do their job.

“Um, well.” The mayor grabbed the microphone again. “Wait now. If you or anyone with you was just at the tamale-eating contest, please return immediately.” He turned off the microphone and gave us a smile. Suddenly, he panicked and turned the microphone back on. “Uh, it's, uh, no emergency, but a friendly request from the Big Bend County Sheriff's Department.”

Aunt Linda and I exchanged looks. “Oh, that'll set everyone's mind at ease,” she said.

Grabbing his wife's hand, Cogburn turned to go. “We've got to go preside over the three-legged race. Y'all let us know what the sheriff finds out, won't you?”

Before I could argue with his priorities, they'd hurried out into the crowd.

“He's trying to throw a wide loop with a short rope,” Aunt Linda murmured.

It was past time to start clearing everything away. “Good Lord, what a mess,” I said, collecting the burners and utensils.

“Don't touch anything. It's all evidence.” Lightfoot stood in the open doorway, pointing to the warming pans full of spoiling food.

“What about the trash? It's starting to stink in this heat.”
My aunt bristled like a porcupine. She ran a clean, tight operation. “This smell will ruin our reputation.” I hated to point out that the choking incident and the murder had already tainted our name in at least three counties.

Two deputies I didn't know by name appeared. They checked in with the sheriff and came back outside. “Don't touch anything, ladies. Me and Deputy Kincaid here are going to have to go through all this . . .” He wrinkled his nose in disgust, “
stuff
before you throw it away.” They disappeared long enough to retrieve their thin rubber gloves from their cruiser.

“Can we take everything away that's not food?” My aunt, bless her heart, was trying.

“No, ma'am. Sheriff Wallace wants us to dust these items for prints.” The officer waved his gloved hand over the assorted warming pans, utensils, and scraps of aluminum foil. “It's just his way.”

Lightfoot and the sheriff interviewed those who had returned to complete their civic duty, which, surprisingly, was a lot of folks. No one seemed to mind waiting their turn as long as they got to tell their all-important side of the story. Guess they couldn't resist helping solve a crime.

Suddenly, Sheriff Wallace appeared in the doorway. Behind him, I could just make out Lightfoot with his arms stretched wide, fighting to keep Aunt Linda and Senora Mari inside Milagro.

“What's going on?”

Wallace eyed the sidewalk and the crowd as if wishing he were fishing on the Guadalupe. “I'm sorry,” he said quietly, turning away from the crowd. “She's claiming that she did it.”

I grabbed his arm. “That's absurd. Aunt Linda wouldn't slap a mosquito unless it bit her.”

“Keep your voice down.” He pulled me farther away from the curious bystanders on the other side of the tables, eyeing me with a compassion I didn't understand.

My aunt called out from inside the restaurant. “Don't worry, honey. I've called Eddie.”

Wallace shook his head. “She's going on about being a jailbird.”

“But Aunt Linda's never done anything wrong.”

“Not her,” Wallace said under his breath.

“Sheriff, what's the meaning of this?” Ryan walked over with Hillary close behind. “Linda Martinez doesn't have a record.”

“No, but she does.” The beauty queen pointed at Senora Mari as if the petite tamale maven were the reincarnation of Lizzie Borden.

The remaining crowd began to whisper.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. If Hillary said one wrong word about Senora Mari, I would smack her upside her pointed head.

The beauty queen took a step back. “She told me herself the night of the tamale party.”