Free Chili Con Corpses by J. B. Stanley Page A

seal. Within the white circle set on a deep cobalt field, a helmeted woman dressed in a blue toga placed a conquering leg squarely in the middle of the chest of her defeated victim. He read the Latin motto, Sic semper tyrannis , but couldn’t remember what it meant. Holding the coaster aloft, he caught Sammy’s eye.
    “What’s the English translation, Sammy?” he asked.
    Along with his unique appearance, the barkeep was also famous for his knowledge of Virginia history. “It means ‘Thus always to tyrants.’” He pointed at the woman. “That there is Virtue and about the purtiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, too.” Sammy raised his eyebrows suggestively. “I wouldn’t mind seein’ her in a wet T-shirt contest, if you know what I mean.”
    James realized that Sammy was referring to the fact that Virtue’s toga didn’t quite cover her breasts, leaving one entirely exposed. She gripped a tall spear in her right hand and held a sword in the other, looking like a triumphant Amazon warrior. “She’d kick your ass if she heard you say that,” James admonished Sammy, taking a deep pull of the pale ale.
    The bartender grinned lasciviously. “Don’t I know it? And that makes me like her all the more.”
    Ignoring Sammy, James drank more of his beer, savoring the taste of clean, crisp hops combined with a hint of banana and orange. “This is just what the doctor ordered,” James said gratefully.
    “And you don’t need health insurance to be able to pay for it. Best medicine in the world, if you ask me.” Sammy retrieved James’s glass, even though it was only partially empty. “Lemme top you off, Professor.”
    Something in Virtue’s determined countenance reminded James of Lucy. Feeling the need to unburden his troubled mind, he dialed her number at home and asked her to join him at the Wilson. Sounding groggy, she did not agree immediately. James then gave Lucy a brief account of what happened at the Caverns and hung up. Morosely, he sat wondering if she would have come if he hadn’t been directly involved in a murder case. He brooded and consumed three beers before Lucy arrived.
    Lucy burst in the door and put her arms around James. She gave him a quick hug, a sisterly pat on the middle of his back, and then asked Sammy for a glass of water. Thanking him, she drank half of it within seconds. “I’m trying to drink a minimum of sixty-four ounces a day,” she explained. “Now,” her cornflower eyes glittered in a manner James hadn’t seen for months. “Tell me everything .”
    As no one was seated anywhere nearby, James told her all he could remember, down to the smallest detail. He knew that Lucy would be interested in every facet of the evening’s events.
    “Oh, I can’t believe I wasn’t there!” she exclaimed regretfully when he was finished. “I’m so bummed!”
    “Why?” James asked with an edge to his voice. “Because now you’re not involved in the investigation?”
    Lucy shrugged. “I might have been able to help the police if I had been there.”
    “You were supposed to be there, Lucy. If you hadn’t felt such a pressing need to get to your exercise class …” he began angrily.
    Lucy shot James an irritated look. “Then what? Lindy wouldn’t have needed to ask Kinsley for help and Parker would still be alive? Is that what you’re implying?”
    “Well, you did ditch Lindy at the last second, Lucy.” He took a drink of beer. “Lately, it seems like you only have room for your classes and your strict diet and your job. What’s happened to the rest of us?”
    Lucy traced tiny circles on the outside of her water glass. “I’m so close to making it as a deputy, James. Can’t you just support me? Lay off on the guilt a bit?”
    “Support is a two-way street,” he replied, irked. “Every time we have a date, things are all about you. Where you can eat, what time you have to get to bed, how I’d better not come inside.” He finished his beer in two great gulps and