A Second Helping of Murder and Recipes: A Hot Dish Heaven Mystery

by Jeanne Cooney

“Oh, it didn’t amount to much. But as he was leaving, Dinky came in, and if looks could kill . . .” She stopped short, puckering her mouth, tiny smoker’s lines picketing her upper lip.

  “I know who Dinky is.” I’d decided it was time to earn my dinner by asking a few questions of my own. “He seems like a nice enough person. Why was he upset with that Cummings guy?” While I knew the answer, I still did my best to mimic Buddy’s carefree tone.

  “From the little I heard,” Janice replied, “Dinky owed Raleigh money, and Raleigh wanted to get paid pronto.”

  Someone shouted for a drink, leading her to move to the other end of the bar, somewhat reluctantly from what I could tell.

  “Why would Dinky owe Raleigh Cummings money?” I asked of Buddy. “I thought he was like you, a rich Red River Valley farmer.” I’d learned early on it was fun to tease Buddy because he was easy to get riled.

  “We aren’t ‘rich,’” he grumbled. “Most of our money is tied up in equipment and land.”

  “So you’re saying Dinky’s so cash poor he had to borrow money from a fill-in truck driver?”

  Again the answer was slow in coming because Buddy had gotten waylaid by someone. As they spoke, Buddy’s friend peeked over Buddy’s head and smiled at me, a glint of curiosity, then approval, in his eyes. Naturally I was flattered and quickly cleared my throat in anticipation of the conversation that was sure to follow. But when the guy got the drink he’d ordered, he simply moseyed away, leaving me with nothing to occupy myself but the fish on my plate, while Buddy chatted up the curvaceous blonde pair who’d taken the guy’s place. Like the man before them, they also took stock of me. But rather than smiles on their lips, they had fire in their eyes. Apparently they didn’t appreciate me dining with Buddy Johnson, even if we were only bellied up to a bar.

  “I wasn’t suggesting that Cummings loaned Dinky money,” Buddy said once the ice princesses had left. “My guess is that Dinky lost some to him in a poker game.” He raised his empty beer bottle, signaling to Janice he was ready for another. “See, Dinky’s a high-stakes gambler, and I heard he got taken to the cleaners in a game last Friday night.”

  I ran my finger up and down my beer bottle, making squiggles through the condensation. “Wasn’t he hauling beets Friday night?”

  Janice set Buddy’s fresh beer in front of him. She had an odd expression on her face and lingered while making change from the small pile of cash in front of us.

  Buddy refrained from speaking until she left. “No. Remember, it was too wet.”

  “So, instead, Dinky played poker with Raleigh?”

  “Could be. Dinky has a hunting shack out by Lancaster. He and his brother, Biggie, have games out there on a regular basis.”

  “You ever play?”

  Buddy snorted. “Not with those two. They play for big bucks.”

  “And what? You’re too poor for that?”

  “No, too smart.”

  We both returned to our food. And after I’d consumed all the fish I could possibly eat, I wiped my hands and wadded up my napkin. “That was . . .” I struggled to find just the right word. “Scrumptious,” I decided. “Simply scrumptious.”

  “Glad you liked it.” Buddy had a determined look in his eyes. He was going to eat everything on his plate.

  “So who else was there?”

  “What?” His attention was on his food alone.

  “For the poker game last Friday night? Who else do you think was there?”

  He speared his last piece of fish. “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Hunter was. He hardly ever misses one of those games.”

  “Is Hunter another rich farmer?”

  Buddy dropped his fork onto his empty plate. “We aren’t rich farmers! Hunter doesn’t even own any land.” He was truly exasperated, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “But he still plays poker?”

  “Yeah. He’s good at it. He doesn’t lose very often.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Hmm,” Buddy echoed. “What does that mean?”

  I rested a forearm on each side of my plate. “It means we now have possible connections between Hunter Carlson, Raleigh Cummings, and Dinky Donaldson. The three of them may have played poker together last Friday night.”

  “So?” He wiped his own hands. “You’re grasping at straws, Emerald.”

  “Maybe.” I considered that for a moment. “Then again, maybe not.” I bent toward him and lowered my voice so no one within earshot could hear. “Janice said that Dinky and Raleigh argued, quite possibly about poker. Maybe that argument led to a fight that ended in murder.”

  Buddy followed my lead by leaning in close. Too close. His face was a mere inch or two from mine. I recoiled, and he grinned that lopsided grin of his. He knew full well he’d unnerved me. “Dinky’s no killer.”

  “Well . . . umm . . .” I stammered, desperately searching for the composure I swore I had only moments earlier. “H-How about Janice? What do you think about . . . umm . . . the argument Dinky heard between Raleigh and her?”

  Buddy gulped more beer before he spoke. “Dinky’s a gossip. He and my brother are like a couple of old hens. They listen to every story out there, then they’re quick to pass them on. And while they might not lie during the retelling, they damn sure stretch the truth for effect. To my way of thinking, if Margie was looking for dirt, Dinky was probably more than happy to provide it, embellishing as he went.”

  I mentally replayed Margie’s account of the confrontation. “Are you saying there wasn’t anything to that argument?” I finished off my own beer. “Even though Raleigh was angry enough to dump garbage on the steps?”

  Buddy didn’t hesitate. “Hey, Janice!” She was stooped over, mixing drinks, at the other end of the bar. “Did someone throw garbage on the office steps earlier this week?”

  “Yes!” She straightened and cackled, ending with a cough so violent it forced her to turn away from everyone. “It was me,” she added over her shoulder when finally able to speak. “And I didn’t exactly throw it.” She turned back around. “I just overstuffed the bag. Then when I went to carry it out to the dumpster Wednesday morning, it got caught on the door handle and split wide open. Why do you ask?”

  Buddy shook his head, letting her know it wasn’t anything important. And to me he telegraphed a look that read, “I told you so.”

  In response, I muttered, “If Dinky was only gossiping, he’s a jerk. He could have caused Janice some serious trouble.”

  “Ready for another?”

  I nodded, and he lifted my empty bottle, once again beckoning Janice.

  “She can take care of herself,” he assured me. “And most people around here know better than to put much stock in what comes out of Dinky’s mouth.”

  Janice set my beer in front of me, and following Buddy’s example, I avoided saying anything until she’d moved on. “Margie seemed to take what he said pretty seriously.”

  Buddy chuckled. “My Aunt Margie is almost as bad as Dinky and Buford when it comes to gossiping. Truth is she may have done some exaggerating of her own. She doesn’t usually let facts get in the way of a good story.”

  I felt foolish. “What about Barbie?” I wanted to save face. “How do you explain her interest?”

  “She runs the paper. The paper depends on news. And news, especially in a small town, is fueled by gossip. Hell, this whole area is fueled by gossip—gossip and the Farm Bill.”

  “Come on, Buddy. Barbie has a responsibility to print facts.”

  “And she does. But she’ll be the first to admit she shifts through a lot of gossip and hearsay to find a few kernels of truth.” He tipped his bottle back. “Did she actually say she believed Dinky’s story?”

  “Well . . . umm . . . no. Not exactly.” I recalled Barbie’s skepticism regarding w
hat Dinky had supposedly seen and heard at the city office. It didn’t take me long to conclude that Buddy didn’t need to know about any of that. “So . . . umm . . . now what?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Buddy glimpsed past me, toward the entrance to the bar. “Let’s do what we came here for.” He jostled my forearm with the back of his hand, prompting me to glimpse over my shoulder. “See that guy over there?” he asked. “The one with the camouflage hat and jacket?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s Hunter Carlson.”

  “What? That little man is the ‘friend’ who gave you the black eye?”

  Buddy scowled. “He’s not that small.”

  “Yes, he is. I think I could take him.”

  “No, you couldn’t.”

  “Well, if I couldn’t beat him up, I’m pretty sure we could share clothes. He can’t be any more than a size six, petite.”

  Buddy eased off his stool. “Small guys can still be strong.”

  “If you say so.”

  I slid off my stool and paraded after him, attempting to fix my focus on Hunter. It took some doing. I was a bit tipsy. Granted, I’d only consumed a couple beers, but that was about half again as much as I should have had. Yep, I was a poor drinker by any measure and a downright disgrace by Irish standards.

  I swallowed a hiccup and whispered to Buddy, “Hey, would your little friend get mad if I told him that, even though he’s wearing camouflage, I can still see him?” I hiccupped again, this time out loud.

  Buddy glanced over his shoulder, annoyance and amusement fighting for top billing on his face. “Just keep your mouth shut unless I ask for your help, all right?”

  Yeah, like that was going to happen. Nonetheless I pantomimed locking my lips and throwing away the key. But two seconds later, I murmured, “Where’s his girlfriend? I want to meet her.”

  Buddy once more spoke to me across his shoulder, “You already have.”

  “Huh?”

  He circled and nodded at Janice. “That’s her behind the bar.”

  “Janice?”

  He didn’t answer but instead extended his hand to his little friend. “Hi, Hunter.”

  “Hey,” Hunter muttered. “Cold enough for ya?” He followed with a bob of his head. “Sorry again about the eye.”

  Buddy waved it off. “Like I said before, I deserved it. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Hunter shrugged.

  “Have you eaten?” Buddy asked.

  “Just finished.”

  “Then let’s grab that booth and have a drink.”

  Again Hunter shrugged, which must have been some kind of male sign language for “okay” because Buddy ushered me into the empty booth, scooting in next to me, while Hunter slid in along the other side.

  “This is Emme.”

  Hunter lifted his chin.

  “I hear Dinky had a hell of a card game at the cabin last weekend.” Buddy was fishing for information, but it didn’t come across that way.

  “On Friday night.” Hunter repeatedly glanced at the bar. “That Raleigh Cummings cleaned us out. But I was positive he was cheatin’. I just couldn’t figure out how.”

  The waitress appeared, setting bottles of Bud Light in front of Buddy and me and a dark mixed drink next to Hunter. “So you got taken too?” Buddy slipped her a few bills.

  “Yeah.” After tasting his drink, Hunter slouched against the bench back. “But I’ll never have to pay him.” He smirked.

  Hmm. During the ride to Hallock, I’d promised myself I wouldn’t make snap judgments about the people I met. I had a tendency to do that, and it ultimately interfered with my ability to reason objectively. Still, I decided right then and there I didn’t like Hunter Carlson.

  I studied him closely, hoping to uncover enough wrong with him to justify my feelings. Right off the bat I checked off beady eyes, a hawkish nose, and the smell of cigarette smoke permeating the air all around him, as if emitting from his pores themselves. But that’s as far as I got before a waft of cold air put a shivering end to my assessment.

  I craned my neck and saw that the bar’s front door was propped open, inviting a draft to wind its way down the hall, along the booths, and up my pant legs.

  “Hey,” some guy yelled from a stool at the bar, evidently experiencing a chill of his own, “Shut the damn door! Were you born in a barn? For Pete’s sake, it’s cold in here!”

  Those among the growing crowd in the entry ignored him, preferring instead to hoot and holler at what I could only assume were outrageously dressed adult trick-or-treaters stopping by the bar one night too early for Halloween. But, of course, I needed to find out for sure. So I stretched across our table, coming precariously close to falling into Hunter’s lap. “Oh, excuse me,” I mumbled, avoiding his eyes while clumsily settling back down by Buddy. “I was just trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening out there.”

  Buddy and Hunter said nothing but followed my eyes, while a few other burly bar huggers took turns ordering that the “damn door” be closed. It was then that the door squeaked shut, and the crowd slowly parted like the Red Sea.

  Some folks moved left while others went right, leaving a gap in the middle where two men stood all alone. Neither man spoke. Nor did anyone around them. Then, as if someone had shouted, “Ready, set, go,” the duo took off. And every man and woman in the Eagles went wild!

  The two were capped in black snowmobile helmets with tinted face shields, rendering them Darth Vader look-alikes, at least from the neck up. They also wore thick nylon gloves and heavy black boots with metal buckles that tinkled as they darted around the pool table and across the dance floor turned banquet area. But other than that, they were bare. That’s right. Buck naked. Just a couple of streaking masses of dark curly hair and less-than-firm body parts.

  “Fee Fon!” some woman shrieked as they ran past her.

  Unsure whether to laugh or scream as they headed our way, I ended up gurgling some strange kind of noise. I also admittedly glanced at their mid-sections or perhaps a smidge lower. And regrettably Buddy followed my gaze.

  Determined not to be embarrassed, I offhandedly said to him after the men had exited by way of the back door, “I don’t know what all the excitement was about, if you get my drift.”

  He threw his head back and guffawed. “That’s not fair, Emerald.” There was a sexy pitch to his voice. “I’m sure you’ve heard of cold-induced shrinkage.”

  “Of course.” I did my best to keep a straight face, and I hoped it wasn’t flushing red. “I’ve just never heard of men voluntarily flaunting it.”

  Naturally everyone in the place had ideas regarding the identities of the masked men. Some even hinted that one of them was Buford, which prompted Buford to stand up next to his table toward the back of the dance floor and offer to prove that neither looked anything like him. He followed by unhooking his belt to a chorus of cheers and jeers before sitting back down.

  A couple other names got bantered about too. But in the end most folks concluded that the men were probably from Canada. Canadians often visited the area and almost as often got blamed for any unseemly activity that occurred, notwithstanding the evidence.

  With the mystery more or less solved to everyone’s satisfaction, most folks returned to what they had been doing before the floor show, which meant Buddy refocused on Hunter. “How’d you get away without paying Raleigh the night of the card game?”

  Hunter played with his swizzle stick, bending and twisting it until it broke. “No one had enough money to pay him that night. Raleigh won right from the start. And he was such an ass about it, nobody but Biggie was willin’ to quit. The stakes just kept gettin’ higher and higher.”

  I felt the pull of Buddy’s eyes and got the distinct impression he wanted my help in questioning his friend
. But I wasn’t sure I could. In addition to being a tad inebriated, I was a bit disconcerted from the all-male review I’d just witnessed.

  Buddy must have sensed I wasn’t going to come to his aid because he blew out a disgruntled sigh and moved on solo. “Why didn’t Raleigh come for his money right away the following day? On Saturday?”

  Hunter was forced to yank his gaze away from the bar, where it had been trained on Janice. “I told him he’d hafta wait till I got paid for haulin’ beets. I wouldn’t have the full amount ’til then. And he wanted it all at once.” With that he went back to tracking his girlfriend’s every move, his eyes oddly filled with both sorrow and longing.

  I realized then I may have misjudged the guy.

  Big surprise there, Emme!

  I now had the strong sense that Hunter adored his girlfriend but was disillusioned with her all the same. In other words, he probably wasn’t a jerk. A fool, yes. But not a jerk.

  “So,” Buddy said, “Cummings was okay with waiting to get paid?”

  Hunter tugged his droopy face away from Janice and offered up a shrug. It seemed to be his favorite expression. In this instance, however, he managed to supplement it with a few sentences. “He didn’t have much choice. But, yeah, he bitched about it the whole way back to his place. See, I rode with him. He didn’t think he’d find Dinky’s cabin on his own. Too bad for him he did.” He chuckled, then coughed.

  “Don’t sound so happy when the sheriff talks to you,” Buddy warned. “He might decide you had a motive to kill him.”

  Hunter sipped his drink. “I’d never kill anyone over money. What’s more, almost everyone else at the table, includin’ Dinky, did a lot worse than me.” He glanced around the room, then leaned forward. “Between you and me, Buddy, Dinky ended up owin’ Cummin’s about eight grand. And Wall-eye? Well, he and the President got taken for close to ten thousand each. Yeah, Wall-eye was a crazy man.” He looked at Janice but talked to us. “I didn’t even know he played poker. Then again, considerin’ how bad he was at it, maybe we shouldn’t call what he did ‘playin’ poker.’” He chuckled at that, ending with his own take on a smoker’s cough.