Hot Dish Heaven: A Murder Mystery With Recipes

by Jeanne Cooney

  I sat up straight, avoiding Father Daley’s gaze. My middle school teacher, Sister Helen, had claimed that priests could spot a lie merely by looking in a person’s eyes. I never believed her, but this man’s eyes were so piercing I didn’t want to take a chance.

  Instead, I watched Margie as she wiggled around in an attempt to get comfortable. And once she was, she squared her shoulders and rested her folded hands on the table. I’d been with her for less than a day, yet I knew those actions meant just one thing. Margie Johnson was about to tell a story. And I was deeply grateful for the distraction.

  “Vern’s dad, Carl, left my aunt Harriet at the altar darn near seventy years ago,” she said. “Harriet’s the middle sister. The one who looks like she just ate a lemon. The one with the hairy upper lip.”

  I nodded.

  “Anyways, accordin’ to the story my ma used to tell, everyone was at the church for the weddin’. It’s the church in the country. The one with the tall steeple. Ya must of passed it on your way into town.”

  Again I nodded, recalling the small, white church with the adjacent cemetery, where women tended flowers on the graves.

  “Well, like I said, everyone was there ’cept Carl, the groom. He was late, real late, and Harriet was beside herself with worry. She didn’t let on, though. No sir-ree. She just sat on the steps of the altar in her weddin’ dress and stared at the door.”

  Margie pulled a wayward strand of hair away from her face and twisted it around her finger, clearly dragging out the narrative for effect. “Finally, there was some commotion outside, and Harriet got all excited. She started goin’ on to the guests about how Carl’s car must of got stuck in the snow, but he was there now, so the ceremony would get underway shortly. Yet, when the church doors opened, Carl was nowhere in sight. Only his best friend, Donald Donaldson, stood there in the foyer.”

  Margie bent toward me and spoke in a soft, confidential voice. “He’s the Donaldson brothers’ great grandpa, don’t ya know. He must be ninety-five by now, but believe it or not, he still gets around. He drives a golf cart all over town. And I mean all over—the right side of the street, the left side.”

  She settled back against the booth. “Anyways, Donald went ahead and told everyone that Carl had eloped the night before with Elsa Erickson. Yah, that’s what he did, all right. He recited the story as if it was nothin’ more than the daily commodities’ report.”

  Annoyance puckered Margie’s lips. “That man’s got no sense. Never has. I swear he could be in a crowded bus headed straight for the river, and he’d waste time bitchin’ about where he was goin’ to sit.”

  I gave that some thought while Margie continued. “Naturally, Harriet was devastated. Elsa moved onto the Olson farm with Carl. That’s the farm Vern operates now. And Aunt Harriet and her two unmarried sisters went on livin’ with their folks, my grandparents, on the farm next door. That’s the place the twins own.

  “Well, wouldn’t ya know, about nine months later, maybe a little less, Elsa gave birth to Vern, and twenty-five years after that, Vern and Vivian got married in that very same church. But neither Harriet nor those other two would go near the place, even though Vivian’s their niece, their own sister’s daughter, and Carl and Elsa were long dead.”

  Margie again leaned across the table, this time speaking in a conspiratorial tone. “They got killed by a tornado. It picked ’em up and threw ’em darn near a hundred yards.” She bent her head to one side. “Carl landed in the cemetery behind the church. And that’s the God’s honest truth. Some folks found it sorta creepy, but most reckoned it was fittin’ since he was the tightest man in the county and would of appreciated the savin’s on the hearse.”

  I had nothing to say to that.

  “Anyways, my aunts wouldn’t go to the weddin’, and to this day, they bear only ill will toward Vern.”

  The priest steepled his fingers. “So the moral of the story is you can’t put any stock in what those old ladies say.” He shifted his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “They’re so bitter and spiteful they could alienate a saint.”

  “But mostly they’re just confused,” Margie countered. “Harriet in particular. She never got over Carl. Ma said she was always moody and, at times, eccentric, but after that whole weddin’ mess, she got a lot worse. Now she’s so bad that sometimes she has trouble tellin’ what’s real and what’s not. I don’t know if it’s Alzheimer’s or dementia or … Well, whatever it is, it causes her to live part time in a make-believe world.”

  “Inhabited by Carl and Elsa?” I asked.

  “Ya got a peek at that?”

  “Yeah, just a peek.”

  “It happens sometimes.” Her shoulders stooped slightly, a burden obviously weighing her down. “More often again lately.”

  Margie’s expression cycled from sad to frustrated before she changed the subject altogether. “Hey, Father, Rosa was in earlier. She gave Maureen some flowers from the garden. I told her to stay and meet Emme, but she said she couldn’t wait around.

  “Uff-dah, she was crabby.” Margie shook her head. “Ya know she made the little Nelson girls cry this afternoon. Hollered at them for diggin’ in the wrong place in the community garden, if ya can imagine that.”

  “I’m sorry I missed her,” the priest replied. “I can’t remember the last time I saw her.”

  Margie winked at me. “Father Daley likes to keep tabs on Ole and Lena’s kids.”

  “That’s right.” He wadded up a napkin and shot it like a basketball, aiming for but missing Margie’s coffee mug. “Though that gets harder and harder to do.”

  “See, he was the twins’ high school hockey coach,” Margie explained, “so he used to see ’em almost every day. Plus, years ago, Rosa played organ and sang at the Catholic Church in Hallock. But when she went off to college, she gave all that up.”

  The priest took over. “Now she’s back, but I can’t get her to come to mass very often, much less sing or play when she does.” He rubbed the upper deck of his double chin. “And as far as the twins are concerned, well let’s just say I’m concerned.”

  “Oh, come now,” Margie squawked, “they’re good boys. They just take after the Lutheran side of the family. We aren’t very consistent about our church goin’ either.”

  Margie clearly had a soft spot in her heart for Father Daley. It was evident by her tone, a combination of thoughtfulness and playfulness, no doubt meant to show she cared while, at the same time, raising the man’s spirits through a little teasing.

  And it worked. The priest flicked his finger against Margie’s shoulder and joked, “Well, you Lutherans are just a bunch of heathens.”

  Margie’s lips hinted at a grin. “Don’t ya have a poker game to get back to, Saint Daley?”

  “Yeah,” he answered, glimpsing down the hallway. “I suppose I should go. I’m sure those poor souls are just itching for me to take their money.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Margie said, clutching the priest’s forearm. “Before ya leave, I wanna make sure it was okay that I gave Emme your recipe for Irish Hot Dish.”

  “Of course. With her ancestry, she’ll actually appreciate it, unlike you folks.”

  His tone was jovial and his smile pleasant, causing guilt to simmer inside of me for having mistrusted him. Being an errant Catholic, however, I was accustomed to the sensation. It was a lot like acid reflux.

  “Keep in mind,” the priest followed up by saying, “if you’re article about Margie ends up lacking—and it probably will—you can always write about me.”

  “Yah, ’cause nothin’ is more excitin’ than a story about a priest,” Margie teased.

  Father Daley bit his upper lip in an apparent attempt to stifle his amusement. “Yes, Emerald, my lass”—He spoke with a fake Irish brogue—“you could write about the life of an Irish-Catholic priest forced to minister to a community of Scandinavian Lutherans. Tell your readers about the poor mass attendance and the dreadful St. Patrick’s Day parades.”
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  “If I had a beer,” Margie jokingly whimpered, “I’d cry in it.”

  “But, believe me,” he added, sans the accent, “there’s nothing here beyond that story or the one you’re writing about this old crow.” He hooked his thumb in Margie’s direction. “No, there’s nothing else worth reporting about from Kennedy.”

  He peered at me, his eyes unnerving. “And whatever you do,” his voice equally unsettling, “don’t give a whit of credence to any if the cockamamie stories the Anderson sisters might tell you, especially about Vern.”

  He leaned forward, and I slunk back.

  “A few years ago,” he continued, “there was a homicide here, and those three actually started a rumor that Vern had committed it.”

  “That’s not quite right.” Margie worked her jaw. “They reported he was at Samantha’s house the night she disappeared. Which was true.”

  “Those old scallywags insinuated a whole lot more, and you know it.” Father Daley’s gaze only brushed Margie’s face before returning to mine. “Because of them, Vern was subjected to countless interrogations. His home was searched. So was his car. It got so bad he voluntarily took a polygraph just to get the cops off his back. Sure, it proved what we knew all along—that he was innocent—but it took a lot out of the guy. Thank God he’s resilient.”

  “What did you say?” I needed him to repeat himself because I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “He’s resilient.”

  “No, before that.”

  “I said Vern was innocent. He had absolutely nothing to do with that woman’s death.”

  He went on talking, but I didn’t hear a thing except the pounding of my heart. It grew louder in direct proportion to my anger. Soon I was so livid I was certain that both the priest and Margie could hear every furious beat. Those old bitties had used me! They’d accused Vern of murder, knowing he was innocent. And they’d used me!

  My thoughts were scattered, and I knew I had to gather them up. To think clearly, I also had to set my emotions aside. But I couldn’t. Three stale nuts had lied about Vern previously, and now they had done it again. Only this time, they’d involved me!

  Spots jumped in front of my eyes, and I could only stare at Father Daley until they faded. I had questions for him, and when my eyes finally cleared and my pulse returned to a more natural rhythm, I opened my mouth to ask them. But all attempts at speech failed. I’d been struck dumb yet again. Or, more accurately, I’d been dumb for a while—at least since meeting the Anderson sisters.

  I inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and waited. At last, when I could think straight, I first considered what I wanted to do to the Anderson sisters. No point in going into details. And, after that, I focused on how calculating the old ladies were.

  Following Samantha Berg’s death, they must have dangled Vern in front of law enforcement. And when the cops refused to bite, they had no choice but to wait. Three years later, when I came to town, the old girls cast him out again, this time, in my direction. They wiggled their lines but didn’t overplay them. If anything, they held back some. “Emme, we don’t know if it would be prudent to say who we think killed Samantha.” Yep, they held back just enough to convince me they were on to something.

  But did they really dislike Vern and his family so much that they wanted him arrested for a crime he didn’t commit? Apparently so. And if they couldn’t get him arrested, did they truly hope to get a damning newspaper article published about him? Evidently. And who was the fool who was supposed to make all that happen? Well, that would be me.

  I gritted my teeth. I was enraged and mortified at the same time. The plunge from dogged conviction to abject humiliation had been swift but anything but painless. The fact is both my chest and my feelings hurt something awful.

  “But you deserve it,” I mumbled. “You can be such a guppy at times!” I leaned back and stared down at my Size 10 feet while pulling at my orange hair. Guppy, hell, I was a damn clown fish!

  Part Three - Combine the Meat and Noodles and Mix in the Soup and Seasonings

  Chapter 24

  After Father Daley returned to the bar, Margie and I sat alone in our booth in the cafe. We didn’t say much. Margie knew nothing about my theory regarding Vern, so she wasn’t upset with me for suspecting him of murder. She was simply quiet.

  As for me? Well, I was still smarting from being bamboozled by the Anderson sisters. I didn’t want to believe that three old ladies had taken me for a ride. But I guess they had. I saw no evidence of anyone else in the car.

  I longed to hold the old girls accountable for everything that had happened, though I knew I had to assume some of the blame. The people of Kennedy had been nice to me. Yet I had wasted no time accusing them, one after another, of being murderers, accessories after the fact, or otherwise in cahoots. Margie was my host, for God’s sake, but even that hadn’t stopped me from offering her up as a suspect. Yep, I too was responsible for what had happened and how lousy I felt. No doubt about it, self-awareness can be a bitch.

  For years, I had dreamed of becoming a big-time investigative reporter. And when I came to Kennedy, I got my chance, only to discover I wasn’t any good at it. Or more to the point, I wasn’t any good at mistrusting people. And that posed a problem since mistrust—or, at a minimum, cynicism—seemed to be a job requirement. And in all probability, my deficit in that regard had led me to get sucked in by the Anderson sisters.

  Yep, just one more addition to the list of “Investigative Skills I Lack.” I could pencil it in right below “patience.” As I said before, my deficiency in that area undoubtedly explained my earlier rush to judgment regarding Ole.

  I shuffled in my seat, attempting to refrain from sliding any farther into the funk developing like quicksand all around me. Believing in people and being spontaneous weren’t bad traits. I tossed that line around in my head as if it were a tow rope, meant to pull me back from the brink of despair. It didn’t work. The rope must have snapped.

  Overtaken by melancholy and out of similes to describe how I felt, I sought relief by doing what I do best. Or, rather, second best. I chased my worries away. Of course I would have preferred to bury them under a mountain of brownies, but I didn’t spot any or possess the emotional strength to go in search of them. So, instead, I settled for banishing all negative thoughts. That’s right, Scarlett O’Hara had nothing on me. Well, nothing other than a plantation, two guys who loved her, and an eighteen-inch waist.

  With my heart riding low in my chest, I distracted myself with the signs on the wall above my booth. The first, crudely written in thick, black marker, advertised a local farmer’s need for truck drivers for the upcoming beet harvest. Perhaps I’d quit journalism, learn to drive a truck, and apply for the job. But what about after harvest? Then what?

  I moved on, noting I wasn’t much of a Scarlett O’Hara.

  The next sign, professionally produced, displayed red letters against a multi-colored background. It announced that the County Center for the Arts was to present The Sound of Music the following week.

  I hated The Sound of Music. I saw the movie for the first and only time while attending Our Lady of Perpetual Light Middle School, where Sister Grace was my music teacher and idol.

  She was intelligent and beautiful and very godly. In my opinion back then, she was the epitome of sisterhood and the antitheses of Julie Andrews’s movie character, who went so far as to break her vows just to marry Mr. Von Trapp. And Margie thought Samantha Berg was a tramp!

  I stared at the poster. Maybe I should join a convent. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about a career or romance. I’d simply do whatever I was told and take lots of cold showers.

  Yeah, like that would work. More than likely there wouldn’t be enough well water for all the showers I’d need. And on my first day, Mother Superior would probably issue an order, and I’d ask a bunch of questions and end up in trouble, just like in high school.

  In truth, I really didn’t do anything terribly wrong in high school. Mostl
y, I just questioned things—a lot. When I was younger, my parents encouraged it. But after I got older and my folks were no longer around, my curiosity was often seen as annoying. At times, extremely annoying.

  On second thought, perhaps I’d be better off establishing my own convent. Then I could dig an extra deep well and wouldn’t have to take orders from anyone else. Yeah, I could buy a cheap house here in Kennedy and call it “Our Lady of the Arctic.”

  The bar erupted in cheers, putting an end to my tongue-in-cheek musing. Two men had begun to sing Mac Davis’s “Oh, Lord, It’s Hard to Be Humble,” prompting Margie to set her cup on the table, a look of unexpected delight on her face. “Buford and Buddy must be here,” she said. “That’s their theme song, ya might say.” She eased from the booth and brushed the front of her tee-shirt. “Come on. Let’s go watch ’em.”

  Not waiting for a response, she hurried toward the hall, and I had no choice but to angle from my seat and trail after her.

  *

  We passed two bathrooms and a coatroom before entering a banquet room reminiscent of a church basement. Like the hallway, the banquet room was paneled in faux wood, with florescent lights hanging from the dingy, acoustical-tiled ceiling. At the back, adults sat around long tables, alternating between eating and scolding their children. For the most part, the kids disregarded what they were being told in favor of pushing metal folding chairs across the vinyl floor and spilling paper cups of lemonade. Up front, Buddy and Buford sang on a slightly elevated stage, while three young women watched starry-eyed from a small, hardwood dance floor that flowed into the bar.

  Margie mouthed that the young man stage right was Buddy, and the other was Buford, though her help with identification wasn’t necessary. Buddy had a shock of wavy, dark hair with thick eyebrows to match, while Buford was evidently attempting to hide his bald head beneath a faded, purple, Minnesota Vikings’ baseball cap. As for the scaly patches of burnt skin on his cheeks or his lack of eyebrows? Well, there was no hiding that. Yes, for the time being anyhow, Buddy was movie-star handsome, while Buford had a face only a mother or, in this case, an aunt could love.