Margie dumped the ground turkey back in the pan, carried it to the prep table, and spooned the meat into an industrial-size baking dish. “Little Val’s husband, Wally, found her.” She emptied the pan. “Of course he wasn’t her husband back then. He was just some guy travelin’ from Fargo to Winnipeg on business. He got sick and stopped in Drayton. That’s the town ya went through just before crossin’ the Red. It’s where the beet plant’s located.”
She aimed her wooden spoon at the cutting board full of chopped onions. “Would ya mind addin’ those in here?”
I commandeered her knife and scraped the onion pieces into the casserole dish. At the same time, she retrieved a metal bowl of whole-kernel corn and another of sliced green beans from a massive, stainless-steel refrigerator that stood alongside the upright freezer.
“Fresh from my garden,” she reported, tossing the vegetables into the ground-meat mixture.
She handed me one of the bowls. A few uncooked beans remained at the bottom, and I popped them in my mouth. “Oh, these are good,” I said as I crunched.
Margie’s cheeks flushed slightly before she hurried back to the subject of murder, evidently something far easier for a humble Scandinavian to deal with than a compliment. “Anyways, Wally’s aunt lives just north of the beet plant. He wanted to rest at her house until he felt better, but she wasn’t home. So he went for a walk along the river there. And lo and behold, he came upon Samantha Berg. She was dead and nearly naked.” She pivoted toward the stove before wheeling back around. “Naturally, he didn’t know it was Samantha at the time.” She arched her pale eyebrows. “Had he been from ’round here, he probably would of. Like I told ya, most men in the county could of identified that big, bare ass.” She shuffled to the stove.
“What did he do?”
“He called the police, who called the FBI. They told him to stick around while they investigated, so he ended up stayin’ with his aunt for darn near a month, if you can imagine that.”
She removed a kettle of rice from a burner and poured its contents into the baking dish. “While he was there, his cousin had a barbecue. That’s where he met Little Val.” She trudged to the sink and dropped the empty pot into one of the deep basins. The thud made me jump, and she chuckled again.
Once back at the table, she stirred the hot dish a final time before nodding at the double wall oven. “Grab the top oven door, will ya?”
I did, and she slid the dish onto the upper rack. “They hit it off right away,” she said. “They’re musicians, don’t ya know. Little Val plays the piano, and Wally, the guitar, and both sing.”
She wiped her hands on the soiled towel that draped her shoulder and headed back to the steel work station. “When they got engaged, he quit his job in Fargo and got another at the crop insurance office in Hallock. Now they’re married and expectin’ a baby. They’re nice folks.”
“Did the FBI ever solve the murder?”
“No,” Margie replied, handing me the recipe for Uncle Ben’s Hot Dish. “They never did, which is just fine by me.”
Chapter 5
Uff-da, it’s hard to believe Little Val and Wally have been married goin’ on two years. Time sure does fly.”
Margie wagged her finger at me. “Now that weddin’ was really somethin’.” She shook her head. “Little Val’s dad, Vern, was still recuperatin’ from the baler accident, but that didn’t slow her ma down one iota. No, not one iota.
“The weddin’ took place in the spring, just before plantin’. The reception and dance were held down the hall, in the ‘V.’ The band was Mid-life Crisis, out of Grand Forks. Ever hear of ’em?”
“No, can’t say I have.”
“Oh, they’re good. Or, I should say, they were good. They just broke up.” She’d lowered her voice as if sharing information no one else should hear. Not a problem, I suspected, since we were all alone. “From what I gather, the female drummer ran off with the keyboard player, who happened to be the wife of the bass guitarist. Quite a scandal.” She arched her brows and waited, apparently wanting me to think long and hard about what she’d just said. “Anyways, they were supposed to play at the benefit tonight, so now, Jim, the banker you met when you first got here, is tryin’ to find a replacement band. Not an easy task on such short notice.”
“Why’s the banker … ?”
“He’s also the commander of the VFW and manages things there too.”
Stooping over, Margie claimed two more oversized casserole dishes from where they were stowed under the prep table. “Yah, for Little Val’s weddin’ reception, Vivian decorated the ‘V’ like there was no tomorrow. The streamers and twinkle lights most people use weren’t good enough for my sister. No, sir-ree. She had to draw, cut out, and paint a bunch of life-size, plywood, Precious Moments characters and prop them all around the bar. There was a Precious Moments bride, a bunch of bridesmaids, a groom, a flower girl, even a minister.”
She brushed by me on her way to the stove. “No doubt Vivian’s a good woodworker and a fine artist. That’s what brought her and Vern together in the first place. They grew up in the same 4-H club, and one of ’em was always winnin’ the blue ribbons in the art competitions, even at the state fair. Just like Vern, Vivian’s a wiz with a carvin’ knife.”
She pulled on a pair of oven mitts, reached for two cast-iron skillets of cooked ground beef, and plodded over to the sink. There, she transferred the meat to her colander. “But what she did for that weddin’ was a bit over the top, if ya ask me. With all those big-headed, wooden people standin’ about, Little Val’s real guests had trouble gettin’ around.”
I couldn’t imagine anyone populating a wedding reception with fake people. “Didn’t they look out of place?”
The hot-dish waltz continued. Margie rinsed the ground beef, returned it to the skillets, crossed to the prep table, and spooned the meat into the casserole dishes. “Well, they ended up bein’ a bigger part of the festivities than Vivian ever intended, that’s for darn sure.” Out of the corner of her mouth, she muttered, “Buford kept pretendin’ to make out with one of the fake bridesmaids. That boy will do anythin’ for a laugh. And Ole got so drunk he couldn’t tell the real bridesmaids from the pretend ones. A half dozen times he dragged a wooden one onto the dance floor, only to yell at it for not bein’ light on its feet. And by midnight, he was ready to fight the fake groom just because he ‘didn’t like the look in his eyes.’”
I briefly bit my lip to keep from laughing. “I take it that once Ole started drinking, he didn’t stop?”
Margie stirred various Italian seasonings into the meat, the resulting aroma reminding me how hungry I was for honest-to-goodness food. My sustenance for the day had been limited to a half pound of M&Ms, three bars, and four green beans.
“Ole lived with Samantha Berg for five months, and during that entire time, I never saw him sober. Then he just up and left her. I like to believe he woke up one mornin’ clear-headed for some reason, saw he was in bed with a pig, and ran like hell. He moved into an old trailer out on Vivian and Vern’s farm, quit drinkin’, and tried to make amends with Lena.” She punctuated the air with her spoon. “But before he succeeded, Lena died, sendin’ him right back to the bottle ’til the county judge gave him thirty days in jail.”
“For drinking?”
“Not exactly.” She laid her spoon on the counter. “At the county fair, some months after Lena’s death, Ole got real drunk in the beer garden and ran butt naked through the Future Farmers’ cow judgin’.” She closed her eyes. “Uff-da, what a sight. I couldn’t eat rump roast for a month!”
Again I tried not to laugh, but this time I failed. “Sorry, it’s just that …”
“It’s okay. It was sorta funny. See, there we were, sittin’ in the bleachers in the cow barn, waitin’ for Buford and Buddy to bring in their heifers, when all of a sudden, Ole ran in wearin’ nothin’ but his boots and a smile. He couldn’t have been drunker if he were twins. He galloped around the ring, swattin’ his bare ass like he was whippi
n’ a horse. I thought Vivian was goin’ to keel right over.”
I laughed even harder.
Margie bent down and gathered up several glass canning jars filled with tomato sauce. “When I make food to sell, I have to use store-bought ingredients.” The abrupt change of subject led me to stifle myself, hoping I hadn’t offended her with all my guffawing. “But whenever I do private events, I can use vegetables straight from my garden and homemade sauces. They’re far tastier.” She wrestled the jars and ultimately won, laying the lids on the metal table with a series of clangs.
“Anyways, the police couldn’t get Ole under control at first.” She scrunched up her face. “I guess it’s hard to wrestle a naked man. Ya just don’t know where to grab. Plus, he kept kickin’ everyone with his pointy-toed boots. But they got him ‘in the end,’ so to speak.” She snickered, and I lost it. “The judge gave him thirty days and ordered him to quit drinkin’, which he did for over six months. But when Samantha disappeared, he went right on back to the bottle.”
Margie divided a kettle of boiled egg noodles between the two casserole dishes and gently folded the pasta into the meat mixtures. “Will ya grab the shredded cheese from the fridge there?”
I caught my breath, wiped my eyes, and opened the refrigerator to an array of glass bowls filled with Jell-O in various colors, all covered in plastic wrap. “Where’s the cheese?”
“On the top shelf, in front, in the Tupperware.”
I peeked under the lid to make sure I had the right container. Grated mozzarella mixed with Parmesan. Even that smelled good.
I handed the tub to Margie, and she liberally sprinkled its contents over the hot-dish mixture in each pan. “As soon as I’m done here, I’ve gotta start my Tater-Tot Hot Dish.”
A smile tugged at my lips. “My mom made Tater-Tot Hot Dish almost every Saturday when I was young. I love it. I made it myself a few times, but it didn’t turn out.”
Margie appeared bemused. “It’s sorta strange ya do what ya do for a livin’, bein’ you’re such a bad cook and all.” She brushed cheese crumbs from her hands with a couple of claps. “I suppose it just goes to show that God has a sense of humor.”
“Or simply enjoys messing with me.” And, man, was I right about that, as my trip to Kennedy proved.
Chapter 6
Margie, why did Ole start drinking again after Samantha disappeared?” I posed the question while watching her place tater tots lengthwise across two casserole dishes filled with a mixture of hamburger and cream soup. I’d tried to convince myself that I’d write a better profile if I knew more about her family, but the truth was I just wanted to hear more about the murder and this town. The people here were different, to put it mildly. But I found them and the murder fascinating. Much more so than hot dish. After all, crime was what real reporters wrote about. “You said Ole left Samantha. That means he must not have loved her anymore, right?”
Margie sniffed. “I don’t believe he ever did.”
“If that’s true, what caused him to fall off the wagon when she went missing? Did he feel—”
She didn’t let me finish. “Ole was a good person. Sometimes, too good. After Samantha vanished, he told me he felt bad that no one in town cared if she was ever found or not.”
With the back of her hand, she wiped a few strands of hair from her cheek. “That tramp used him, yet he never said an unkind word about her. She wrecked his marriage, but he shouldered all the blame.”
“Well, he should have shouldered some.”
“Not necessarily.” Picking up one of the casserole dishes, she again nodded at the wall oven. “When a guy’s in a bad state, like he was, those around him need to be more thoughtful. But Samantha never gave a hoot about anyone ’cept herself.”
This time I opened the bottom oven door. “Well, Ole shouldn’t have let himself get into a ‘bad state.’”
Margie slid the dish onto the upper rack. “Yah, he should of asked for help. But that’s not easy to do, especially for a man. That’s why other folks have to be more responsible durin’ those tough times. Like the Lord said, ‘You are your brother’s keeper.’” She placed the second casserole dish on the lower rack. “But it’s also during those tough times that the devil goes to work, and …” I didn’t hear the rest because the casserole dish banged against the oven wall, but I was certain I’d gotten the gist of it anyhow.
“And Samantha Berg was the devil?”
She bumped the oven door shut. “Well, she wasn’t an angel, that’s for darn sure. Maybe she was after his money, or maybe she was just plain bored. Whatever her angle, it wasn’t love.”
“How do you know that?” I returned to the prep table, while she made her way to the sink.
“Less than a month after Ole left her, a new guy moved in. Samantha always liked havin’ a man livin’ with her, especially durin’ the winter. That way she didn’t need to pay the heatin’ bills all by herself.”
Margie went on to rattle off the names of some of Samantha Berg’s live-in boyfriends. It was a long list that sounded like a Scandinavian phone book: Alex Anderson, Thor Carlson, Sven Hanson …
While only partially listening, I doodled on a blank index card and thought about Ole and Samantha. I routinely doodled when sorting things out in my head. One of my professors suggested it helped “put order to my musings.”
I sketched a female stick figure lying dead on a river bank, blood flowing from her chest. “Margie, is it possible Ole came to resent Samantha Berg?” Concerned my picture might be in bad taste or—worse—make me queasy and unable to eat dinner, I scribbled it out and flipped the card over.
“He should of, but like I told ya, he never said anything negative about her.”
More doodling on the back of the card. This time mere geometric shapes. “Let me get this straight. Ole’s family fell apart because of his affair with Samantha. And his attempt at reconciling with Lena failed because of her death, which was due, at least in part, to that same affair. That means Ole lost everything because of Samantha Berg. Yet she moved on without any trouble whatsoever.” I raised my head, then my eyebrows. “That had to make him resent her, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “It made me resent her, that’s for darn sure.”
“And exactly one year to the day after Lena passed away, Samantha disappeared, and Ole started drinking again.”
Margie remained silent, and later I came to wish that I had too. “Margie, you said Ole fell off the wagon because he felt bad that no one cared if Samantha was ever found, but that doesn’t make sense, especially if he never had any real feelings for her in the first place.”
My instincts warned me that I was coming on too strong. Yet I couldn’t stop. I’d developed a theory about Samantha Berg’s death and was hard pressed to keep it to myself. But as I soon realized, Margie wasn’t the ideal confidant. You see, I’d concluded that her brother was the murderer.
I had no evidence to support my theory, but that didn’t bother me. I thought of myself as fairly knowledgeable about crime solving because of a few investigative journalism classes I’d taken in graduate school. None of my assignments actually dealt with homicide. I always chose non-violent crimes. No blood. No gore. No getting sick in front of classmates. Still, I’d come to believe that most murders were easily solved. Students who worked those cases reported that the killers almost always were found among the people with the strongest ties to the victims. And in this instance, Ole and Samantha’s ties were pretty damn strong.
“Margie, I can’t help but suspect your brother hit the bottle again to hide from something—something he did—something terrible.”
Margie braced herself against the sink. Clearly she was having trouble admitting to a killer in the family. Although as far as I was concerned, Ole wasn’t your typical homicidal maniac. His was a crime of passion. And that, I thought, should have provided his sister with at least a modicum of comfort. But I thought wrong.
As soon as Margie turned my way, I cou
ld tell from her expression, I’d gone too far. I’d said too much. She wasn’t comforted at all. Rather, she looked really ticked off. “Ole didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re drivin’ at. I wouldn’t of blamed him if he had. But he didn’t.”
Ignoring my better judgment, I re-engaged my mouth. “How do you know? How can you be so sure?”
“I just know, that’s all. My brother wasn’t some kind of crazed killer.”
“I didn’t say he was. But it’s possible he—”
“If he’d killed her, don’t you think the FBI would of arrested him?”
Unable to reign myself in, I sarcastically replied, “They didn’t arrest anybody, but that doesn’t make her any less dead.”
Margie again mumbled something, but this time I didn’t catch much other than “effin’” this and “effin’” that. And when she was done “effin’,” she signaled an end to our conversation by twisting on the squeaky faucets and noisily rearranging the dirty pots and pans.
Once she began scrubbing them, I volunteered to towel them dry, but she insisted they be left alone. Noting silently that the dishes weren’t all that needed to be left alone, I sat back down and chided myself for being too impatient.
It’s my biggest character flaw. Not my only one, mind you, just my biggest. I’m too pushy. I move too fast. I’m afraid if I take my time, I’ll be left behind, all alone. That’s what my therapist says anyway.
Yeah, my therapist. And before you get too judgmental, let me just say that I think most people would benefit from a little one-on-one counseling. But I digress.
I shuffled through the recipe cards Margie had given me. In an attempt to ease my discomfort by otherwise occupying my mind, I picked a recipe I hadn’t yet copied and began doing just that. It was Lena’s Chili Hot Dish. Margie had mentioned it was Ole’s favorite.
While jotting down the list of ingredients, I lectured myself on why I should stick to gathering Margie’s recipes and profile notes and avoid all further talk of murder. It wasn’t as if I’d ever write about the incident anyway, so why work so hard to uncover the details? Besides, if I continued to badger Margie, she might refuse to give me what I needed to complete my real assignment. Then where would I be?
Hot Dish Heaven: A Murder Mystery With Recipes Page 3