Chili Con Carnage by Kylie Logan

Roberto when you—” When she pointed at me, her hand trembled. “You are the one who killed him!”
    Okay, so laughing was probably not the best way to respond, but it’s not like I could help myself. Good thing the big bartender came over with an ice pack for the outside of my neck and a glass of water for the inside. I sipped carefully, and after the initial feeling of fire in my throat, the water cooled and soothed it. I set down the glass and winced when I put the ice pack against my skin.
    “Number one,” I told Karmen, “I didn’t kill Roberto. And number two—” She opened her mouth to talk and I held up my free hand to stop her. “You were mad at me even before he was dead. So don’t pretend you’re on some holy mission to avenge his death, missy. You were at the Showdown before Roberto was murdered. Something’s going on here. And since you just about killed me . . .” I fingered my throat, grateful that the ice had numbed the pain. “. . . you owe me an explanation.”
    Karmen grabbed a paper napkin from the metal holder in the center of the table and blew her nose. “You . . . you didn’t kill Roberto?”
    “I hardly knew the guy.”
    “But you were jealous. Horribly jealous! You must have been. Roberto, I know he told you that he was dumping you and coming back to me.”
    I had to play it diplomatic here or risk Karmen going up like a rocket again. Which means it probably wasn’t smart to mention that far from dumping me, Roberto had actually asked me out again before he’d been whacked. While I weighed my options and chose my words, I dared another sip of water.
    “You came gunning for me at the Showdown yesterday because you thought I was going to steal Roberto from you?” I asked her when I was done.
    Her shoulders shot back. “Well, I know you were going to try. But let’s face it, he could never be hot for you the way he was for me.”
    I was not about to debate this. In fact, I hoped it was true. “So let me guess, you saw me and Roberto here together the other night—”
    She sat up like a shot. “You bet your ass I did. And I know Roberto, he didn’t see me. I was over there.” She pointed to a booth in the shadows of the far corner of the bar. “I watched you two together.”
    “Then you knew we didn’t do anything.”
    “You were with him.” Apparently to Karmen, this was enough. She was not an attractive woman to begin with—sallow complexion, crooked teeth, stringy hair—and when her expression hardened, I realized she was older than I’d thought at first. Older than Roberto, that was for sure. Which might have explained why she was obsessed to the point of mayhem. “You were in love with him,” she said. “You must have been. Every woman who met Roberto fell under his spell.”
    What’s that they say about love being blind? In Karmen’s case, I think it was fair to throw dumb into the mix, too.
    “Here’s the deal . . .” I leaned forward, the better to make it look like I was sharing a confidence when truth be told, all I was trying to do was get this woman not to go off on me again. Long before, I’d learned that sometimes the only way to do that was to throw out a good line of bullshit. “I could see from the start that Roberto, he didn’t really like me. I’m thinking maybe he was just trying to make you jealous. You know, that’s why he asked me out in the first place.”
    She tried to play it cool, but Karmen couldn’t quite keep a smile from twitching around her thin lips. “Jealous? You think so?”
    “I’m sure that’s what happened. And I know that’s why he asked me out. So you see, it wasn’t because he liked me—”
    “And you?” She narrowed her eyes and studied me, like she was some kind of human lie detector and if she looked hard enough, she’d know if I was telling the truth. “You weren’t nuts about him?”
    “I thought I was.” Apparently, either her Spidey Senses were off or I was a pretty darned good liar,