He was having a lot of fun at my expense, and I didn’t appreciate it. Usually I was a pretty good sport, but disappointment had taken its toll on my disposition.
“And you, Deputy Ryden, can be a pain in the butt.”
A smile played around his lips. “I guess I can be, especially when I’d rather be talking about something else—like you.”
Nice recovery. That’s what I said in the solitude of my brain. Out loud, I merely promised to “end the inquisition” if he answered “one last question.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. I imagined he was debating whether to stay or run for the hills, which, given the local landscape, would have been far, far away. “Okay,” he eventually said, opting for the former, at least for the moment, “what’s your ‘last’ question?”
I sat up straight. “If Ole Johnson didn’t kill Samantha Berg, who did?”
I wanted to believe I had asked solely out of concern for the deceased. But I knew my own desperation played a role too. When I thought Ole was guilty, I felt as if I were on my way, professionally speaking. Admittedly, I was moving in the wrong direction, but at least I was moving. Having experienced that, I wasn’t crazy about returning to a job that revolved around food and recipes but didn’t look to be leading anywhere else anytime soon. Nor did I want to wait for my editor to decide when I was ready for a decent assignment. I had a good story right here. And I was determined to pursue it.
Yes, from this point forward, I was going to take control of my life. I wasn’t going to leave it to chance or allow someone else to dictate it. Barbie’s words had niggled at me. And I’d come to a decision. I would no longer “live by default.” I’d live my life on my terms. And I’d start now.
The deputy laid his hands, palms down, on the table. “I’ve told you about a hundred times, Emerald, no one ever got arrested.”
“I know, I know.” His evasiveness was beginning to wear on me. “But you must have some ideas. What do you think? Was it Jim, the man who discovered Samantha missing? Do you think he killed her?”
“No. He was back from her house in less than two minutes, madder than hell that she’d taken off after promising to sub for him. And he showed no sign of a struggle.”
“Well, I’m certain it was someone who could handle a knife and, considering the date, someone with ties to both Samantha and Lena. So what do you think? Was it Margie?”
I hated to offer her up. She was my host, and I really liked her. But I had no choice. Because of her prowess with kitchen knives and her hatred for Samantha, she was a potential murder suspect, and I was intent on hunting down the murderer, whomever it might be. I had to. For the sake of my career. I stopped, knowing I was forgetting something but having no idea what. One second passed and then another before it came to me. Justice. That’s right. I was seeking justice too.
“Emerald, it doesn’t matter what I think,” the deputy said in response to my insistence.
“Oh, come on.”
He restlessly moved about in the booth. “No, I’m not going to say anything more.”
“Why?”
His face was a picture of irritation. “Why is this so important to you?”
“Because …” I stopped short, warning myself to calm down. I was coming on too strong. I was on the verge of saying too much about my plans. “I just want to know what happened. That’s all. So tell me. You must have some suspicions.” I thought I’d recovered nicely.
For his part, the deputy parted his lips, but this time, rather than speaking, he stared at me in silence. Then, after several moments, he set his jaw and exhaled heavily through his nose, his nostrils flaring slightly.
Feeling a new tension in the air, I encouraged my gaze beyond our table as I sipped the cold remains of my coffee.
I was pretty sure time stood still before he spoke again. “Yeah, Emerald, I guess I have some suspicions.” Alerted by the sound of my name, I turned to him as he added, “And they’re all about you.”
I bristled. “Me?”
He jabbed his finger in my direction. “You may be fooling Margie, but you’re not fooling me. You’re far too nosy to be here just to write about food. You’re chasing a story about the murder too. I can feel it. So why don’t you come clean with me?”
Nosy? I’d often been accused of being nosy, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear, especially coming from this guy. Did I mention I kind of liked him? Beyond that, “nosy” was an ugly word. I much preferred “inquisitive.”
“I don’t understand you or that newspaper editor of yours,” I huffed. “There’s an unsolved murder here, yet neither of you will talk about it.”
The deputy leaned across the table. “You spoke to Barbie about this?”
I recoiled. Even sitting down, he was an imposing figure. Still, I pushed myself to say, “I tried, but she only told me that the case didn’t amount to much.”
“Well, she was right. Nothing’s ever come of it.”
“But it’s murder!” I’d planned to use an inside voice, but it didn’t work out that way. My volume rose proportionately to my frustration, and in the end, I shrieked.
Everyone in the place stared at me slack-jawed. And while the deputy, like the others, remained mum, the corners of his mouth twitched as if he were about to laugh.
Anger simmered just beneath the surface of my skin. He better not laugh at me!
I was about to say something out loud to that effect when a dispatcher broke in over the deputy’s radio. The message, delivered amid static, was incomprehensible to me, although Deputy Ryden seemed to understand it just fine. He listened while rubbing a gouge in the table. And after he signed off, he announced, “I’ve gotta go.”
My heart sank to somewhere in the vicinity of my knees. Yes, I was irritated with him for being tight-lipped about the murder. And, no, I didn’t like that he’d second-guessed my motives for being in town. Even so, I was smitten and wanted him to stay. Yeah, I know, pitiful. But what can I say? “We haven’t finished—”
“I have to get back to work. There’s been an accident.”
He pulled himself from the booth and adjusted his belt. It was loaded down with an array of law enforcement tools, everything from a gun and a flashlight to a taser and that damn radio. “As far as Samantha Berg’s murder is concerned, like I said, no one’s been charged.”
“And that’s it?” I wasn’t sure if I was referring to what he’d just said about the murder or the abrupt end to our time together. Either way, I felt rebuffed. I heard it in my voice.
He must have heard it too because some kindness found its way into his tone. “Hopefully, I’ll get to stop back later. If not, I’ve enjoyed meeting you.” The line of his mouth morphed into a devilish grin. “Even if I don’t know what to make of you.”
My breath caught in my throat. What? He didn’t know what to make of me? I was totally dumbfounded by him!
Well, I guess not totally. As I watched his backside angle around one table, then another, I knew one thing for sure—I very much enjoyed the view.
That did it! I definitely had to start dating again. And soon!
*
After Deputy Ryden left, I slumped into the corner of my booth and languished there, thinking about Ole. How could I’ve been so wrong? He was the obvious killer—at least before I’d learned all the facts. I slumped a little farther.
Oh, well. I suppose there was no point in dwelling on my missteps. I’d just have to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, until I found the real culprit. And I would find him—or her.
Yeah, right. Deputy Ryden wasn’t the country bumpkin cop I’d expected him to be. And if he and the FBI couldn’t solve the case, what made me think I could? This wasn’t some television show where murder investigations were neatly wrapped up in sixty minutes minus commercials. This was real life.
And speaking of real life, Emme, Randy Ryden entered and exited yours in less than an hour, and that has to be
a record, even for you.
“Now wait a minute,” I muttered to the offending voice in my head. “I’m a good and deserving person.” That’s what my therapist taught me to say in response to feelings of inadequacy. She called it positive self-talk. And while I thought it was kind of hokey, and I wasn’t very good at it, I did it anyway. “Don’t beat yourself up,” I added, as likewise trained. “Do something constructive with your energy.”
Something constructive? Hell, I was in a café! What was I supposed to do? Dishes?
Dismissing that as a valid option, I dug out my pen and a few index cards and began copying down more Jell-O recipes. I wrote about gelatin packets and boiling water but soon found myself taking stock of my life. I was twenty-six years old and sitting alone on a Friday night in a café on the edge of nowhere, writing down recipes for funeral food. Could I be any more pathetic?
Glancing across the table, I spotted a half-eaten Special-K Bar on the deputy’s plate. And it, too, spoke to me. No need to dwell on what it said. Suffice to say, I replied by gobbling it up.
Chapter 16
Because the café was crowded, I surrendered my booth, claimed a couple bars from the buffet table, and headed outside. I thought the fresh air might mend my crummy outlook. The Lemon Bars in hand were merely backup, in case extra help was needed.
The wind had died down, and it wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been, so I strolled over to the community garden. It covered the vacant lot between the Senior Center and a dilapidated store front. At present, it was empty. No people milling about, which was just fine with me. I needed some time alone.
A plaque out front read, “The Community Garden: Beautifying Kennedy One Petunia at a Time.” It was staked among yellow day lilies that were flanked by purple cone flowers and white daisies. I started down a wood-chip path lined with delphiniums and garden phlox. To my left, multi-colored hollyhocks encircled poles topped with bird houses. On my right, in a bed of pink roses, two wooden benches begged for company. I decided to oblige them.
Taking a seat, I breathed deeply, allowing the garden fragrances in as I peered over the flower tops, across the highway, and past the grain elevator. There, a couple dozen houses were scattered about, each neat but modest. In one yard, a young boy mowed the lawn. In another, an old woman pulled sheets from the clothes line. Beyond the houses, checkerboard fields of wheat and sugar beets stretched across the flat horizon as far as I could see. And other than the muffled sounds of the people in the café and the hum of that lawnmower, I heard nothing. No city busses rumbling or rush-hour cars honking. None of my normal Friday-night sounds.
The quiet should have calmed me and improved my mood. But it didn’t. I suppose the gravel that swept across my face, courtesy of an unexpected gust of wind, didn’t help matters. Wiping my eyes, I ordered myself to do a couple things: First, stop wasting time asking about Samantha Berg’s murder. Second, refrain from taking stock of life again anytime soon.
I bit into a Lemon Bar and longed for a sugar high and the improved disposition that would accompany it. Sugar has always helped with whatever ails me, from PMS to heartache. Another bite. More waiting.
Preoccupied with anticipation, I failed to see the Anderson sisters as they approached. “Yoo-hoo, they called.
I jumped. “Oh, hello.”
“We seen ya here,” said Henrietta, the oldest, “and we wanted to check on how your visit was goin’.”
“Oh, well, it’s going fine.” No need to share the excruciating details of the mess that was my day, my life. I continued to nibble.
Henrietta backed her broad behind onto the bench opposite mine. And her sisters followed her lead, medium-sized Harriet claiming the middle and tiny Hester settling on the far end. Each then situated her canvas bag of stolen goodies on her lap, in front of her saggy breasts.
“Say now,” Henrietta began, wiggling around to get comfy as the bench groaned in protest, “what do ya think of our little town?”
“It’s nice,” I replied, although I wasn’t sure I meant it.
Of course I liked that in a single day here, I’d visited with more people than I had in a month in Minneapolis, where I routinely wasted away evenings and weekends alone in my apartment. Still, I believed that for a successful career, I needed to live in a vibrant, urban community, where important things happened, even if to date, I’d only seen reports of them after the fact on television or in the paper.
“Yah,” Henrietta continued, “small towns are great. We live right over there, don’t ya know.” With a long, spindly finger, she aimed across the alley at a neglected, white, two-story with a wrap-around porch. “It costs more to heat than most houses in town, but it’s close to everythin’.”
Despite my wretched mood, I had to smile. Margie had mentioned heating bills too. Together the remarks lent credence to my editor’s claim that the cost of home heating was the second most popular topic of conversation among elderly Minnesotans. The first? According to him, it was the effect various food had on the digestive tract.
Immediately images flooded my mind of everything the old girls had piled on their plates and packed in their purses at the community dinner. Dreading what they might want to discuss as a result, I searched for something less disgusting we could talk about.
My eyes darted this way and that before coming to rest on the Anderson home. I snapped several mental pictures of it, if for no other reason than to fill my head, leaving absolutely no room for visual impressions of intestinal distress.
The house was large but not as big as those I’d seen in the country. Some of its shingles were curled, and paint was peeling from the porch columns and window frames. The front stoop sat catty-wampus, and the stair railing was reinforced with a single two-by-four wedged against a cinder block. The place definitely needed work. Yet someone had taken the time to erect a sturdy-looking, single-car garage to the left of the house and plant a garden to the right.
The garden butted against a small lot situated directly across the alley from the rear entrance of the VFW. In the middle of the overgrown lot, a bungalow squatted like a disheveled fat lady sitting in tall grass.
Most people would have considered the place “run down.” But I viewed it as much more. To me it was a chance to pre-empt any digestive-related prattle that may be in the offing. It also was an opportunity to learn more about Samantha Berg’s disappearance and murder.
I know I just got done declaring I’d drop my so-called investigation. But I had more questions, and the tiny, ramshackle house seemed to be begging for answers. On top of that, the sugar from my lemon treat had kicked in, not only raising my spirits but coaxing me into taking another crack at the case. Really, what did I have to lose?
Admittedly, I no longer believed I’d break the case wide open. This wasn’t a game of Clue, and evidently, the killer wasn’t Ole in the alley with a knife. I also understood that any article I wrote, no matter how good, would unlikely propel me into a prestigious position at the paper. At least not right away. Ideas I had along those lines earlier in the day were unrealistic, fueled by an overactive imagination and frustration with my career. Yet, I was confident I could pen a good summary—the anatomy of a cold case or something along those lines—and even if it never got published, it would further demonstrate to my editor my skills as a writer. And that would be a good thing, right?
Once back in Minneapolis, I’d form the bones of my story by reviewing public records and archived articles. While here in Kennedy, I’d work on the heart of the piece, collecting reflections from the locals who were around at the time. And to begin, I’d interview the Anderson sisters. Yes, they were wacky, but I was smart and confident I could distinguish fact from fancy.
“Hey,” I said to the ladies, “is that where Samantha Berg lived?”
Henrietta lifted her sharp, protruding chin in a haughty fashion. “Yah, but how do you know about her?”
Hester, the youngest, didn’t wait for me to answer. “She was sittin’ with Depu
ty Ryden in the café. He must of told her.”
I eyed the little old lady whose skin was as thin and wrinkled as the tissue stuffed in gift bags. “Actually,” I replied, “Margie first told me about her.”
“Oh,” all three replied in drawn-out unison.
“Yeah, Margie mentioned that Samantha Berg was murdered, but I wish I could learn more.” As I’d hoped, Henrietta and Hester exchanged glances that suggested they wouldn’t mind providing their insight, so I added, “I suppose you knew her quite well since she lived right next door.”
I waited for a response. If I wanted them to open up, I had to allow them to set the pace of our conversation. Not easy for me to do, but I managed.
“Oh, my goodness, no,” Henrietta answered after a couple moments that felt much longer, “we didn’t know her well at all.”
Harriet, the middle sister with the mustache, followed. “She wasn’t very friendly, at least not to women. She was plenty friendly to men, though, if ya catch my drift. We seen men over there all the time.”
Without thinking, I blurted out, “Men like Ole?”
All three women lowered their eyes, like chickens in search of feed in the dirt.
Shit! I’d once again pressed too hard, too fast.
I had to apologize and was about to do just that when Henrietta, the mother hen, said, “Yah, men like Ole. He was our nephew, don’t ya know. Our sister’s son, God rest their souls.”
And little Hester repeated, “God rest their souls.”
Out of respect, I observed a moment of silence. Then, reminding myself to engage my brain before my mouth, I spoke with as much care as I could muster. “Well, with your close ties to Ole, you must have been … um … upset when authorities questioned him about Samantha Berg’s death.”
To my astonishment, Henrietta lifted her head and responded in a full-throated voice, “Oh, not at all. They talked to lots of folks. I’m sure Margie told ya they called on her a half dozen times, which made no sense at all.”
Hot Dish Heaven: A Murder Mystery With Recipes Page 9