My thoughts stumbled over the few tidbits I’d gathered, and I relayed them to him. I explained how I’d learned about Raleigh’s early-morning “joke” from Father Daley. And I reported Margie’s account of Dinky Donaldson’s afternoon encounter with Raleigh and the city clerk. “Plus, there’s the story the deputies shared with us about you and Raleigh having it out at the Caribou in Hallock.” I pointed at his black eye. “So what’s your side of that?”
An engine whined outside, distracting both of us. The sound grew louder and louder before it stopped altogether.
“First,” Buddy answered after the quiet had been restored, “it’s not much of a black eye.” He held up one finger, followed by another. “And, second, I saw Raleigh in the Caribou around six on Tuesday night, when I stopped in for supper. He was well on his way to getting hammered. When he spotted me, he started going on about how Buford and I had it so easy. I reminded him he didn’t even know us. But he said he knew our kind, and that was enough.” He rubbed his hands down his face, apparently already tired of dealing with the death of Raleigh Cummings. “I wasn’t in the mood to listen to that shit, so I told him that since he couldn’t work drunk, he may as well consider himself done. We only had a day or so left anyhow.”
He picked up his fork and poked at his Breakfast Pie. It was a mixture of eggs, sausage, potatoes, cheese, and seasoning. “Then because I’d finished my meal, I paid my bill and left. But like some damn shadow, Raleigh followed me outside, yakking about how he wasn’t drunk and I couldn’t fire him.” He raised his eyes to mine, his expression subdued. “I tried to ignore him. But when I opened the door to my truck, he took a swing at me. He missed, but I reacted.” He shrugged. “What can I say? I shoved him. He fell against another truck and slid to the ground.” He loaded up his fork. “I didn’t stick around to help him up.”
I had lots of questions, but in the end, curiosity dictated what I asked. “So where’d you get the shiner?”
He hesitated, his fork midway to his mouth. “I told you. It’s nothing.”
Before I could offer a rebuttal, the café door creaked open to an odd-looking pair. They clomped inside, leading the way for a lot of cold air. Despite wearing a turtleneck and a sweater, I had to rub my arms to stave off the chills.
The taller of the two wore a black nylon snowmobile suit, black boots and gloves, and a matching helmet, complete with a dark face shield. The shorter one also wore clunky boots, thick gloves, and a helmet with a face shield. But the other clothes were different. Very different. They consisted of plaid bib overalls that looked to be wool, a knit turtleneck, and a down jacket that refused to zip more than a few inches, leaving a protruding belly exposed.
The two removed their gloves and helmets, as Buddy and I shifted to get a better look at them. It was Wally and a very pregnant Little Val. I easily recognized him from my previous visit. But she had changed considerably over the past few months.
“It’s getting so damn cold around here,” Little Val hollered, “we’ll soon be growing nothing but snow peas and iceberg lettuce.”
“What in the hell are you two doing out in this weather?” Buddy asked by way of hello.
Wally offered a resigned sigh. “She’s craving Rhubarb Bars.” He hooked his thumb toward his wife, who was clumsily shedding her jacket. “We didn’t have the ingredients to make any at home, but she knew Margie had some down here, already done.”
Without realizing it, I muttered, “Must be some good bars.”
Little Val waddled by. “They are. Margie got the recipe from Heidi Auel, who’s great at making up new dishes.” She fluffed her curly blonde bob. “And these particular bars are gluten free, so I can eat ’em.” She patted her large belly. “At this point, stomach problems wouldn’t be good.” She lumbered into the kitchen, each step of her heavy boots sounding like the pounding of a hammer. “I’m grabbing a plate of ’em, and if there’s any left when I get done, I’ll give ’em to you.”
I rummaged through my brain until locating the image I had of Little Val from my last visit. She was petite back then, with just a tiny baby bump. Now, in addition to her ginormous belly, she had a plump face, sausage arms, and a butt that crowded the backside of what appeared to be men’s pants.
Buddy commented on them after Wally plopped down next to him. “I haven’t seen overalls like that since—”
“Don’t go there,” Wally warned. “She couldn’t come close to fitting into her snowmobile suit. Or for that matter, any of her maternity pants. And it’s too cold for the dress she wore last night.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “She found those overalls in the back of the hall closet. They’re her dad’s. He must have forgotten ’em.” Still more tapping. “She tried ’em on, and they fit after she cuffed ’em up. And since they’re wool, they’re warm. So now she says she won’t wear anything else till the baby’s born.” He wouldn’t stop tapping! “As soon as the storm passes, we’re driving over to Young’s General Store in Middle River to buy another pair. One for church, according to her.”
“If you can’t get it at Young’s, you don’t need it,” Buddy replied and slurped his coffee.
Wally slumped against the booth and unzipped his snowmobile suit. Right away it rose as if attempting to swallow his head. “Whatever it takes to get through the next three weeks.” He folded his collar over.
Buddy chuckled. “That bad, huh?”
Wally sighed heavily. “I guess I’ve got no business bitching. The wife’s got it a lot worse. But since you asked, yeah, it’s been hell.” He thought things over for quite some time. “The pregnancy and harvest and . . . umm . . . you know, just everything.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and extended his long legs in front of him, slouching down a bit farther and dropping his head back.
Wally wasn’t a handsome man, especially from my new vantage point, which entailed seeing right up his nose. Much of the hair that had disappeared from the top of his head had found its way into his nostrils as well as his ears and along his eyebrows. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his Adam’s apple protruded something awful, while his eyes bulged like those of a fish.
“So, Wall-eye,” Buddy said, “have you met Emerald Malloy?” I guess I wasn’t the only one who saw the fish resemblance. “She’s the reporter from the Minneapolis paper. The one who did that piece on Margie. The one who . . .” His voice trailed off. There was no need to finish. Everyone in the tri-county area knew what had happened while I was here last.
Wally sat up, the nylon from his snowmobile suit rustling, and stretched his hand in my direction. “No, I haven’t met her, but I’ve heard a lot about her.”
Fearing where this conversation was headed, I tensed. “I can only imagine.”
A slight grin cracked the tight line of Wally’s mouth. “What can I say? Vivian Olson is my mother-in-law.” He let go of my hand. “And while you made mention of her and her cake-decorating business in that newspaper article you did on Margie a few months back, you didn’t focus on her. So, of course, she wasn’t entirely pleased.”
I relaxed. Of all the things he could have said, that wasn’t so bad. I seriously doubted Vivian was ever “entirely pleased” about anything.
“So, what are you two up to this morning?” Wally wanted to know.
“Well,” Buddy answered, “Emerald’s here to get more recipes from Margie for another newspaper article, which should thrill Vivian.”
Wally grunted.
“And since she’s in town, I’ve asked her to help me dig into Raleigh Cummings’ death.”
“What?” Wally’s face registered concern. “Why would you do that?”
“Well,” Buddy said, “after you and Little Val left the dinner last night, the sheriff stopped by. He made it clear I was his number-one suspect.”
Wally shuffled in his seat, his snowmobile suit swishing. “Based on what?�
��
Buddy picked up his knife and rocked it between the fingers of his right hand, his eyes holding steady on what he was doing. “A beef Cummings and I had on Tuesday night.”
“You mean when you fired him?”
“Yeah, if you want to call it that. It was going to be one of his last nights anyhow.”
“Well . . .” Wally wavered. “You certainly weren’t the only guy who bitched about Raleigh Cummings.” He stopped for another second or two. “He was an asshole.”
I took that as my cue to wade into the conversation. “I heard he made some nasty remarks to your wife after she called him out on the field radio Tuesday morning.”
Wally swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bouncing around like a tennis ball. “Umm . . . Well . . . Yeah . . .” He glanced at Buddy. “You already know all about that.”
“Uh-huh.” Buddy squinted at me, clearly wondering what I was up to.
I leaned toward Wally. “He really got upset with her, huh?”
Wally appeared thoughtful, as if weighing what he should say. “Yeah . . . umm . . . he was mad at her, but . . . umm . . . I think he was mad at a lot of people. See, she wasn’t the only one to get after him.”
“Even so, I imagine you really lit into him.” I knew better but wanted to see how forthcoming he’d be with me.
“No.” He peered at me sideways, with just one eye, like fish do. “I didn’t say anything to him.”
“Really?” I did my best to act surprised. I’m not sure if I pulled it off. “Why not?”
Buddy kicked me under the table, no doubt commenting on my acting ability. But I wasn’t in the mood to listen to critics.
“Val was doing fine on her own,” Wally said. “She . . . umm . . . didn’t need me buttin’ in.” He pressed his fingertips together, and he must have found the resulting steeple mesmerizing—perhaps soothing—because he stared at it.
While I continued to fire questions. “Didn’t you want to voice your support for her like the other crew members did?” I considered it a legitimate question. But when I peeked at Buddy, I noticed his jaw muscles tighten. Just to be safe I curled my legs up onto my seat, out of striking distance.
“She knows I support her.”
“Yeah, I suppose she does.” I wasn’t really getting anywhere, so I decided to come at him from a different direction. “Besides, you probably talked to the guy later, after work, when you didn’t have everyone listening in on the radio, right?”
“I . . . umm . . . didn’t see him after work. When we got done, Val and I dropped Vivian off at her house, then went home ourselves.”
“And you didn’t go out again?”
He looked at me straight on, frustration seasoned with a pinch of anger simmering in his eyes. “No. Not until we went back to work that night.”
“How about the next day? Wednesday?” I again peeked at Buddy. He appeared to be squirming on Wally’s behalf. “Did you go out then?”
Wally slapped his hands against the table. “What’s going on here, Buddy? Why is she asking me all this stuff?”
Buddy planted his hand on Wally’s forearm. “She’s only trying to help me.”
He jerked his arm away. “How? By pinning Cummings’ murder on me?”
“Of course not.” Buddy glared at me, his jaw muscles getting a good workout.
I guess he wanted me to dial it back. Be more discreet. But that had never been one of my strengths. Still, because I’d probably pushed these guys as far as I dared, I gave it a shot. “Wally, I’m sorry if I came on too strong. I’m only . . . umm . . . attempting to get a handle on how folks reacted to Cummings. So . . . umm . . . I can do what I can for Buddy.”
Wally expelled a deep sigh and shuffled in his seat. He wasn’t happy. But he was going to give me a break. After all, Buddy was family. “No, I didn’t go out on Wednesday either. Val and I got home from the field around one o’clock, ate lunch, showered, and went to bed. That was our routine most days during harvest. Pretty much the same thing day in, day out.”
“What about your job in Hallock?”
He shuffled in his seat. “Every year I take vacation during beet harvest. Lots of people do that.” He glimpsed at Buddy. “That’s what Raleigh did, right?”
Buddy grunted. “He was on paid vacation from his office job in Fargo.”
“But unlike him, I still had to go in once in a while.”
“Yet not this past Tuesday or Wednesday?” I reached for a nonchalance I wasn’t feeling and hoped it didn’t show.
“No, I was too tired.” His countenance remained guarded, indicating I probably wasn’t as good at faking nonchalance as I had hoped. Big surprise. “Plus, Val doesn’t like being left alone anymore. Now that she’s getting close to her due date, she wants me around all the time. I don’t think I’ve left her side since last Friday night.”
“So you didn’t go anywhere?”
He frowned, apparently signaling that once again I was pressing too hard. “Like I said, we slept most of Wednesday. I don’t think either of us got up until it was time to go back to work at midnight. Then two hours later we were sent home because the piler got shut down due to the cold. So we went back to bed. And we didn’t leave the house again until Val’s doctor appointment at noon yesterday. Then, when we got done there, we went home, cleaned up, and came here for the banquet.” His frown lines deepened. “Now, that should answer all your questions.” He pulled himself from the booth.
“I’ve gotta get out of this snowmobile suit before I roast to death,” he added to Buddy before tromping out of the café and down the hallway, with Buddy behind him.
Chapter Fourteen
While slowly finishing my breakfast, I read through the rest of the local paper. I especially enjoyed the Meeting Notes that focused on Margie:
The VFW women’s auxiliary from Kennedy held its fall meeting last week. At the suggestion of Margie Johnson, owner of the Hot Dish Heaven café and the group’s treasurer, the women performed a team-building exercise by driving to Wahpeton, North Dakota, where they shopped and ate at Antoinette’s On the River, a gift boutique and luncheonette. While most everyone ordered the chicken salad, Margie tried the Chicken Dumpling Hot Dish, insisting she needed to expand her culinary horizons. With the exception of Margie’s sister, Vivian Olson, the women praised the food. And for her part, Margie was over the moon about the hot dish, noting that it was “gall-darn tasty.” The business portion of the meeting went off without a hitch. And a pretty good time was had by all.
I had folded the paper and was just about done with my coffee when Buddy returned, a scowl on his face. “What in the hell were you trying to prove with Wally?” He spoke in that hissing voice that people use when they’re angry but don’t want anyone to hear them except the target of their wrath.
Irritated by both his expression and his tone, I matched his scowl and raised him a pair of defiant eyes, along with a snarl. “I was teasing out information.”
“No you weren’t. You were torturing the guy.” He plopped down on the seat across from me. “Any minute I expected you to start with the waterboarding.”
I steeled myself against his criticism. “I warned you, Buddy, I’m not a professional investigator.”
“But you’ve heard of tact, haven’t you?” He was getting downright pissy.
“I can quit anytime, you know.”
His lips tightened like a piece of taut string. “I don’t want you to do that. I just want you to be more diplomatic. He’s my cousin’s husband, for cryin’ out loud. He’s one of my best friends. And he certainly didn’t have anything to do with Raleigh Cummings’ death.”
“Then why’d he lie?”
His face twisted into a grimace. “What?”
“He was in Hallock on Wednesday afternoon. But he said he never left his hou
se after he and Little Val got home from the field. Not until they went back to work at midnight.”
“How do you know he was in Hallock?”
“Father Daley saw him.”
Doubt clouded his eyes. “Maybe the priest was mistaken.”
“He seemed sure of himself. And it was only two days ago. Unlikely he’d make a mistake like that.”
Buddy poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. “Maybe Wall-eye got mixed up. He’s under a lot of pressure with the baby coming and all.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I wasn’t convinced. It seemed to me that stressed out or not Wally would remember if he’d spent the afternoon at home with his pregnant wife or in Hallock by himself. But rather than speculating about that, I decided to review what I knew for certain about the murderer. I also decided to do it silently. It’d give me an opportunity to calm down. Which would be a good thing because, at the moment, I still wanted to shove Buddy’s Breakfast Pie right up his nose.
I glimpsed at him. He was absently scanning the newspaper, the corners of his mouth turned down, the crease across the bridge of his nose more defined. He appeared as if he needed a break from me as much as I did from him. Hard to fathom.
I sipped my orange juice and mulled over who might have committed the murder. In my view, the killer was strong and, odds are, worked the night shift for a local beet farmer. After all, he—or she—had the ability to lug a dead body around and was aware of the unplanned night-time shutdown at the piler. The killer also knew that the piler had scales serviced via underground pits—perfect for hiding bodies.
By my estimation, there were a couple hundred night-crew beet workers in the area. But as I’d learned in a journalism class on investigative reporting, I only needed to focus on those who had “motive” and “opportunity” to carry out the crime.
Granted, I was just getting started, but my mental list of suspects already included several people. First, Little Val and Wally. Because of that dustup in the field, each had reason to dislike Cummings, though I questioned if it was motive enough for murder. Next, Janice Ferguson. True, she wasn’t employed by a beet farmer, but she was overheard arguing with Raleigh Cummings only a day or so before he died. The subject of the argument, however, was garbage—literally garbage. Again probably not much of a motive. And finally, there was the man sitting across from me. His fight with Raleigh was the most contentious. But if he had committed the crime, why ask me for help?
A Second Helping of Murder and Recipes: A Hot Dish Heaven Mystery Page 9