3:56 P.m.
A giant fireball roared as it erupted into the air like hot lava spit out of a volcano, igniting a heat wave so sizzling it refracted the light and distorted my vision. The sudden and extreme temperature, combined with the peppery plume of hickory smoke that whooshed over us, caused my eyes to water.
“Hadouken!” cried Declan, with such vigour that Ryu from Street Fighter would have been impressed.
I held my breath for a moment until we had walked through the smoldering grey cloud. Once we had made it to the other side, we both spotted what we were looking for, although the objects of our interest couldn’t have been more different.
One of the perennial attractions at the Colossal Cloverdale Rodeo is their Cowboy Rib Fest, a literal hotspot destination set up along a patchy grass field at the far end of the Country Fairgrounds, a brisk ten-minute walk from the Stetson Bowl. The stretch of land was narrow and butted up against a chunk of real estate regularly used by production companies for the seemingly endless amount of television and film series filmed in the quaint and charming pocket within Surrey, British Columbia. I could see in the distance, behind the procession of pop-up grills and food trucks, numerous paved roads, storefront facades, and other special indoor and outdoor buildings which were used as sets, although they all had been co-opted by the Greater Vancouver city for the weekend in order to allow for more carnival games and attractions. It was only when I noticed a large banner advertising caramel candy apples for sale covering the blue-and-white sign for The Smallville Gazette that I realized I was just a kryptonite stone’s throw away from Superman’s adopted hometown.
It had been a bit of a hike for us to make our way from the locker room to this pitmaster’s paradise, but given our renewed determination to hunt down Jasper’s killer, we made the trek without complaint.
A long row of grills ran along a side-by-side spread of searing stations. Each featured six-by-ten, industrial sized, propane-powered, cooking grills crackling loudly, and spewing orange embers into the air as they roasted racks of ribs, beef steaks, pork chops, chickens, every kind of animal flesh that could be doused in flame, sauce, and seasoning. Industrial-sized smokers and portable charcoal BBQs were sprinkled in among the heavy-duty bars of stainless steel sitting atop the multiple burners. The master meat chefs at the separate stands worked below large, overhead placards depicting images of mouth-watering, charbroiled grub.
I spotted the specific pit I had been looking for, but when I turned to inform Declan, I found myself alone. I stood still, looking around for him, in-between a line up for Fraser Valley Chilliwack sweet corn on the cob and a gaggle of tykes with puffy red-and-blue cones of cotton candy, who loitered around an oversized, inflatable slide that anchored the adjacent “Kids Zone” play area.
After a few moments I gave up and shook my head at my cousin’s all-too-familiar disappearing act. However, as I made my way toward my destination, I spotted an oasis in a desert. Smack dab ahead of me was a refrigerated cart-on-wheels, and it was all I could do not to burst into a sprint. The stripey-capped attendant looked at me curiously as I skidded to a stop in front of him.
“Please tell me you have milkshakes!”
Stripy Cap shook his head. “Just popsicles and sno-cones.”
“Banana flavoured?” I asked.
A wave of relief washed over me when he nodded. I fished cash out of my pocket as Stripey Cap scooped ice into a paper cone and began to douse it in sweet yellow liquid.
“Extra syrup, please.”
My instruction was obeyed and a moment later I was biting into chilled relief from the hot sun, blazing grills, and long day. It was almost as good as a DQ shake.
Almost.
A calm came over me as my frozen treat scratched an itch that had been growing since I knocked back my preferred, post-match beverage before finding Jasper Adams’s body. Then an unmistakable Irish brogue cut through the noise of the crowd like a razor-sharp blade through basted beef.
“Hold up, Jed!” Declan hollered. He had a twenty-ounce plastic cup filled to the brim with blonde ale in one hand, while the other held some delicacy that looked like a slinky flayed out of a spud deep fried on a stick.
He held up his carnival food and nodded. “Bone Apple Tit, Mate.”
I ignored his continued butchery of the language of love and stayed focused. “What the hell is that?” I asked, eyeballing his starchy monstrosity.
“A tornado potato.”
“A what?”
Declan took a chomp of his native land’s dietary staple. The swirling tater bounced up and down from his chin like the bellows of an accordion until he used his tongue to corral it all up into his mouth.
“Tornado. Potato.”
“You have those back home?”
Declan glared at me as if I had questioned Bono’s ability to croon like a legend.
“I’ll bloody well pretend I didn’t hear that,” he replied, before licking some lingering salt off of his lips. “What about you?” he said, nodding toward my sno-cone. “That banana?”
I barely managed a nod as I took another bite of my icy treat. “I’m surprised ya ain’t dancin’ a bloody jig.”
I ignored his comment and gestured toward his portable cooler backpack. “What’s the point of lugging that thing around if you’re just going to buy a beer everywhere we go?”
He stared at me incredulously. “This is a Bohemian Pilsner, Jed,” he snapped, proudly holding up his brew as if taking offence. “Should I have paired me salty tornado potato with a Bud Light?”
“You really like saying ‘tornado potato’ out loud, don’t you?”
“Aye,” replied Declan, without missing a beat.
I sighed, and like so many things with my cousin, let it go. “Come on,” I said. “I found him.”
We munched on our respective snacks as we approached the last stop in the long line of cookout camps, one that shared the same moniker as the food truck parked on the grass beside it.
DDT BBQ featured several twenty-something bodybuilders working the pop-up grill, and their sweaty and hairless torsos all glistened from the blistering heat broiling an assortment of meat.
An extra shiny kid in a skimpy undershirt struggled with a pair of tongs as he tried to turn over a rack of ribs. When he leaned in close a burst of flame shot up off the grill and singed his arm. He yelped before dropping the tongs and rubbing his forearm.
“Goddamn it, Zander!” bellowed a familiar voice. “Tell me you’re lathered up in baby oil and not essential oil!”
“Flynn used the last of it,” he said, defensively, rubbing his stinging appendage.
“That shit is flammable you moron!” snapped my part-time boss Bert Grasby. “Get the hell out of here and have Braxton check you out with the first aid kit.”
Zander nodded obediently and scurried off behind the DDT BBQ base. Seeing me, Grasby threw his arms up in frustration. “It’s impossible to find good help these days.”
His rotund face was even redder than usual from the all-encompassing heat. Instead of his usual embroidered track suit, he wore a creamy-white, sleeveless, hoodie with matching shorts, made of the same velour material that was his signature style and preference. It was a bad call, especially since his outfit was splattered with blotches of brown barbeque sauce, and he must have been sweltering. But Grasby didn’t seem to care. He picked up the tongs from the grass, snatched the overcooked ribs from the grill, and tossed them in a garbage bin.
“I don’t suppose either of you wants to make a few bucks working the gridiron?”
“Not unless you’re talking about a football field,” I replied.
Grasby nodded, seeming to have expected such a response. Declan took a big swing of his pilsner, and nodded toward the muscular young men in Grasby’s employ.
“Jaysus Christ, Fella. How many o’these tubesteak Tarzans ya got workin’ fer ya?”
“Hey, fuck you, Declan! They’re not all queer.”
“Just gay for pay then,” piped my cousin.
“Enough, the both of you!” I snapped, having had my fill already and knowing if I didn’t interject, I would witness a descent down a rabbit hole of snarky barbs and insults. “I need your help, Grasby.”
“With what?”
I recapped Jasper Adams’s murder in the loggersports area and the discovery of his body after the rushed finish to my match with “Cowboy Cobb” Calhoun.
“Fuck!” barked Grasby. “How come I’m just hearing about this now?”
“Cuz his body is still bloody warm, ya gutternsipe.”
“That’s not all,” I said, and continued by telling him about my encounter with Kelly Lewis and how I was choked out and left unconscious. I left out the part about the cash in Jasper’s locker, however. I was going to play that one close to the chest for the time being.
“What can I do to help?” asked Grasby.
He may have been an acquired taste to many, but ever since our interests aligned while I was working my first case the pot-bellied promoter had become a staunch and reliable ally.
“You’re running a BBQ pit and XCCW is putting on shows at this country fair. Surely you can grease some wheels and introduce me to the top brass around here.”
“I suppose. But why?”
“Because I have some questions for them.”
“Ah, c’mon, Ounstead. I thought you were done with that Sherlock Holmes shit.”
“Not just yet.”
Grasby sighed and slumped his shoulders. His volleyball-sized tummy protruded further than usual when he put his hands on his hips.
“Do you know if the cops are shutting things down?”
“No idea.”
“Wind yer necks in,” said Declan. “Last I saw it was just the lumberjack pit they had cordoned off.”
“So, we’re still slated for tonight’s show then,” said Grasby, hopefully.
“That’s your business. I only signed on to work this afternoon.”
“Tit for tat, Ounstead. Main event this evening and I’ll give you what you want.”
“Not interested.”
“Even if I put the strap on you?”
That surprised me. For over a year since my return to the ring I had danced around the XCCW Championship, but until recently I never really considered becoming the top dog within the promotion because I had only ever agreed to wrestle part-time. Although he initially wanted me to take the belt from the former champ El Guapo, Grasby had grown impatient and christened the steely old warhorse “Cousin Pappy” Vinny McKinney as his main man.
Although it was a far cry from the gold I held while wrestling in the WWE, I’d be lying if I said that for a moment I wasn’t tempted. There really was nothing quite like making an entrance to the ring with the biggest bling, no matter how big or small the audience may be.
I pushed aside the nostalgia and stood firm. “I couldn’t do that to Vinny,” I said earnestly. “Not when he finally snagged the top prize in the twilight of his career.”
“And if I told you it was his idea?”
“What?”
“His rotator cuff is toast. Needs surgery. His doc gave him the green light for one more match to hand-off the title, but that’s it. No comeback. He’s done.”
I slurped the last of my banana sno-cone and considered the quid pro quo.
“You’d be doing him a favour, Ounstead. Letting him go out with some dignity by dropping the belt to a high-profile star like you before being put out to pasture.”
“Not a bad bargain there, Boyo,” said Declan, nudging me with his elbow.
“All right, Grasby,” I said reluctantly. “It’s a deal.”
The portly, faux-velvet-garbed man clapped his hands together so victoriously you might have thought he had just negotiated an end to the rivalry between the Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flames.
“What now?” I asked.
“Now you meet the Seven Heads of the Rodeo.”