Page 29
She felt for the guy, she really did, but he didn’t need to be a dick about it. His wife had probably stood by him through a lot of catastrophes.
Connor ran the scene efficiently and calmly, then directed the trucks back to the pavilion while he talked to the trailer owner.
“Any idea what happened?”
The man, Bill Whitacre, ran his head through his thinning hair, his face contorted with pain. “I just got back from the judging tent, and I could tell the coals had been stoked, but when I tried to cool it off, the smoker was too hot to touch. My meat was ruined by then anyway, but it’s ridiculous that someone would try to get me out of the competition this way.”
Connor tilted his head as he looked down at the man. “You think this was deliberate?”
“Absolutely, I do,” Bill said, standing straight and looking Connor in the eyes. “I’m one of the leading contenders, and they know it.”
His face clouded up like he was going to cry, and Olivia cringed. Seriously? But Bill pulled himself together.
“Was someone here the entire time?”
Bill shook his head. “My wife had just left to pick up my sister-in-law at the hospital. She was involved in that big crash two days ago and needed picked up. Between the time she left though, and the time I was at the judge’s tent, it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes it was unsupervised. We’ve left it overnight like that, so I don’t understand…” he shook his head. Then something seemed to come over him, and he lifted his head. “It was Pete Crocker at Rise and Swine. It had to have been. I was just talking to him about my chances in the rub category, and I think he knew I was going to beat him. He had to have been the one to crank my pit.”
Olivia blinked at the rambling complaint, trying to keep up with his line of thinking and the unfamiliar wording. He thought a competitor blew up his trailer?
Connor held up a hand. “I don’t think you should go off, half-cocked, accusing anyone of something like this, Mr. Whitacre. That’s a pretty serious accusation.”
“I was going to win,” Bill snapped, pumping a fist in the air. He looked like he was going to stomp a foot on the ground, too, but he restrained himself. She fought laughter at the maniacal light she could see in his expression. These people really took their barbeque seriously.
“Aren’t there cameras,” she suggested from beyond Connor’s shoulder.
“Let me call the event coordinator,” he told Bill soothingly, “and we’ll see what we can see.”
Bill didn’t seem soothed, though. He seemed to be building up a head of anger, muttering to himself and shoving past his wife when she tried to calm him down. Olivia could see danger building, and she nudged Connor’s elbow. He was already moving, though, wrapping a firm arm around Bill’s shoulders and escorting him away from the crowd.
A voice called out from the gathering on-lookers. “Hey, Bill, I guess your world-famous, ground-breaking rub must have blown up your smoker, huh?”
Olivia knew without being told that this must be Pete Crocker from Rise and Swine.
Bill glanced over his shoulder, then tore away from Connor to lunge at Pete. If Connor hadn’t been so quick on his feet, and so big, Pete probably would have been rolled under a four-hundred-pound pit master.
Pete continued to laugh, stoking Bill’s fury, and Olivia worried that the man was going to stroke out. His face was almost purple with rage. Then he glanced around the ring of onlookers, and his anger faded. He drew in several heavy breaths and nodded at Connor. “Let’s see what kind of video there is.”
* * *
Connor really did not want to talk to Courtney any more than he needed to, but if she had video of the midway — and he knew she did — there was a very good chance she’d seen if anyone had tampered with Bill’s smoker trailer.
She smiled up at him seductively as she parted through the crowd, her gaze focused on him. If Connor wasn’t as old as he was, with the experience he had, he might have been tempted. No, never mind. He wouldn’t have. Olivia stood just beyond Courtney, and he took heart in her subtly amused expression.
“I’m so excited you called me, Connor. What can I do for you?”
“Can you call up the security feeds for the midway?”
“Sure,” she said, voice cheery as she brought up the tablet and started tapping on the glass. “Here it is,” she said, turning the tablet his way.
The feed showed the grouping of tents in the street where they stood. Connor moved the dot on the bottom of the screen, rewinding the feed to almost an hour ago. The smoker glowed orange-red, even though the view was a little off-kilter. They saw several people move in amongst the tents, but he paused it on one person. Glancing around, he looked for Bill, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Olivia was talking to the wife, and she hadn’t seen the video yet.
“Can you stay with her until I find Bill?” Connor asked quickly. “I think he’s about to do something rash.”
Olivia nodded and Bill’s wife wrung her hands. “He’s going to do something bad, isn’t he?”
Connor took off in a jog, headed down the midway to the Rise and Swine trailer. The drop door on the front of the trailer had been lowered, shielding the inner part of the trailer from view. How the hell had Bill gotten away from them so easily?
Connor turned at the corner of the trailer and wasn’t surprised when he spied Bill Whitacre up inside the trailer, door of the grill open. He appeared to be spraying accelerant from his hand and into the smoker, even onto the meat.
