I felt myself blush. Then I got perturbed. I don’t like anyone—cute or not—judging my manners. It’s my biggest pet peeve.
I put my fork down and tore the string apart with my fingers. “Yep.” I defiantly sucked the cheese into my mouth. “I’m gathering Margie’s favorite recipes and writing about her life as a rural café owner.”
He grabbed his own fork—overhand—and pushed hot dish onto it with his free thumb. No mistake about it, he was mocking me. I’d been nice enough to share my booth, and he was repaying me by making fun of how I ate. What a jerk!
Determined to teach him a lesson, I consumed my remaining tater-tots without saying a word. But as I munched, I had to admit that while not talking, I still was gawking.
Well, not exactly gawking. It was more like examining him on the sly. Whenever he looked elsewhere, I checked him out. I attempted to discern if his eyes were chestnut brown with flecks of green or chestnut brown with flecks of gold. No matter, they were striking. And his mouth was the kind featured in toothpaste ads. His lips were full, his teeth, brilliantly white and perfectly straight.
He grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling all sexy-like, and heat instantly rose along the nape of my neck, making me regret that I’d opted for coffee instead of water. I couldn’t very well cool off by pouring hot coffee down my shirt.
He stuffed his mouth with hot dish and wolfed down a roll. Another smile split his face, and my stomach did a somersault. I reminded my stomach that the guy was making fun of me, and that it needed to hold steady on my behalf.
He stabbed another clump of hot dish, aimed it at his mouth, and as he parted his lips, our eyes met and held. A double somersault. My stomach wasn’t a very good listener.
Perhaps he isn’t mocking you, Emme. It was another one of the voices inside my head. Perhaps he, too, is just a messy eater.
A second voice piped up. Or perhaps you’re making excuses for him because he’s so good looking you want to get to know him, no matter if he’s nice or not.
Unwilling to accept I was that shallow—after all my therapy—I went with the first voice and the whole bad-manners thing. And for reasons not worth discussing, that motivated me to give him another chance.
My intention was to inquire about Samantha Berg. Now that I’d seen what the Anderson sisters were truly made of—stolen buffet food for the most part—I assumed I’d be better off obtaining information about her murder from area law enforcement. But at the moment, I didn’t think very highly of them either. Remember, Ole was obviously guilty but was never arrested. Still, I’d ask Deputy Ryden what I wanted to know. And I’d do it patiently, like a good reporter should. I’d even make some small talk first.
I opened my mouth only to clamp it shut again. My mind, it seemed, was stuck in neutral. I couldn’t think of anything to say. And that wasn’t like me. Usually, I was quite chatty. Yeah, I know, hard to believe. But there I was, self-conscious and tongue-tied.
Not sure what to do, I stooped to eavesdropping in hopes of hearing something that would ease my brain and my mouth back into gear. First, I caught a snippet about the snowmobiles sold by Arctic Cat in Thief River, but that was no help. Since I’d never ridden a snowmobile, a conversation focused on them wouldn’t go anywhere, no pun intended. Next, I heard two women debating the ethics of an indigent lady who had used money donated by a local church for “necessities” to have her breasts enhanced. “Don’t be too quick to judge,” one of the women said in response to the other’s claim that a boob job was never a necessity, “God works in mysterious ways.”
I believe it was then I got angry—with myself. Other folks were obviously quite comfortable discussing whatever the hell popped into their heads, so why was I so nervous? It made no sense. And I was going to put an end to it. “Deputy Ryden,” I began, “did you say you were from the Cities?”
The deputy cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve lived here more than six years, but since I wasn’t born here, the locals consider me ‘from the Cities.’”
I was baffled. “But if you weren’t born here, how on earth did you end up here?”
He shot me a look of indignation.
Flustered, I tried to clarify myself. “I didn’t mean … It’s just that people who live in these tiny towns usually have some connection to them. They generally don’t move to them voluntarily. I mean …” Concluding I was only making matters worse, I closed my mouth.
The deputy tilted his head in amusement. “Growing up, my brother and I spent summers here on our grandparents’ farm.”
“Oh, so you’re one of those kids.”
He appeared confused, and I attempted another explanation. “I always dreamed of spending time with grandparents in the country. I just don’t have any. I mean I had some. But I never knew them. Well, um … they died.” This wasn’t going well.
“So did mine.” He switched utensils, filling his spoon with green Jell-O garnished with shredded carrots. “Die, I mean.” He shuttled the green goop into his mouth.
As he chewed or did whatever was done with Jell-O, I silently questioned how he could eat that stuff. Then I questioned God. No, not about the Jell-O. That would have to wait for another time. Presently, I only wanted to know why Deputy Ryden got to live out my childhood fantasy, while I had to live my life.
Not that my life was bad. But I was only thirteen when my parents died, which really sucked. According to the police, their car skidded across a patch of ice on a freeway overpass in Minneapolis. It smashed through the guardrail and plunged into the icy Mississippi. They were killed instantly, leaving a gaping hole in my heart.
I moved in with my mom’s only sister and her husband, where I stayed until I graduated from high school. He was a doctor at the Mayo Clinic, and she, a corporate executive. They were decent but stuffy.
“Family time” at their house was limited to dinner, served precisely at eight. At the table, they corrected my manners ad nauseum, everything from how I sat to the way I held my fork and chewed my food. The criticism may have been warranted, but it drove me crazy. Thankfully, by nine, I was in my bedroom, listening to my parents’ favorite music or reading novels about kids fortunate enough to live with loving grandparents in the country.
As those memories faded, I dug deep for something else to say. “What did you do in the Cities?”
“After college and the police academy, I was a cop there for three years.” He consumed another clump of hot dish, either washing it down or mixing it with his coffee.
“What made you leave?”
“I got tired of arresting the same guys over and over, only to see them out again the next day. And I like to hunt. Up here I can do that practically right outside my back door.”
“You don’t mind being an outsider?” Fortunately, the questions were forming more easily.
“Folks around here are pretty nice.” He flashed a perfect smile, and I quivered. That damn air conditioning! “Sure, a few people consider themselves better than everyone else,” he conceded, “but most understand that in the big picture, none of us is …”
He motioned toward an obese man who reminded me of bread dough left too long to rise in the pan. He wore a Minnesota Wild cap and tried in vain to look important while speaking louder than necessary into his cell phone. The sewer guy stood behind him, mocking him with charade-like gestures. “See the man over there on the phone?” the deputy asked. “The one in front of Shitty? Now, he’s a real prick.”
I eyed the guy, from his puffy face to his black socks and sandal-clad feet. “How so?”
“Well, among other things, he claims to be a descendant of the first president.”
My gaze made its way back to the deputy. “Washington?”
“No. Before him.”
I stared blankly, moving Deputy Ryden to enlighten me. “Washington was the first president under the Constitution. Before that, the country was governed by the Articles of Confederation. The first president under the Articles was John Hanson, supposedly
that guy’s great-great-great-grandfather or something.”
“And you know all this because … ?”
He paused, his fork midway to his mouth. “We’re not idiots. We may live in the sticks, but we have schools and books and—”
“I didn’t mean—”
“And that guy, John Hanson, writes lots of editorials advocating that American history classes be changed to recognize his ancestor and namesake as the true first president.” He emptied his fork into his mouth.
“He’s serious?”
“Uh-huh.”
While the deputy put away more food, I did my best to digest what he’d already said. “What do the other folks around here think?”
He cleared his throat. “Most Scandinavians are humble. They don’t like a lot of attention. They’d prefer he shut up.” He again readied his fork with hot dish. “Behind his back, they call him Mr. President.” He grinned broadly, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
No doubt about it, I’d been wrong about Deputy Ryden. He was one of the good guys. I’d experienced so few of them over the past few years, I just didn’t recognize him at first. True, he had poor table manners, but honestly, that just gave us something in common. Besides, he deserved major props for being the first guy in nearly a year to ask to join me for dinner. Okay, he only did so because the café was crowded, but let’s not split hairs. He asked.
A year? Had it really been a year since Boo-Boo?
Yes, his name was Boo-Boo, so without a doubt, I should have known better.
I met him shortly after moving back to Minnesota. He briefly played for the Minnesota Twins and ran around with a big guy called Yogi, like the cartoon bear, not the baseball legend.
Within a few weeks, I was positive it was love. I spent almost everything I earned on “date” clothes and called in sick and missed deadlines just to be with him. One Saturday morning I even maxed out a credit card to fly to Chicago, where the Twins were playing a three-game series with the White Sox. I wanted to surprise him, and I did. I also surprised the two blonde bimbos (or is it bimbi?) in bed with him.
Returning home, I buried myself in work, started therapy, and swore off men. Unlike Margie, I couldn’t imagine forgiving a guy for cheating, no matter the circumstances. Truth is, my world had always been black and white. Rules existed—expressed or implied—and we lived by them or suffered the consequences. End of discussion. Oh, how things had changed!
Shaking my thoughts loose, I discovered my gaze was still trained on Randy Ryden. But since I was paying a therapist $150 an hour to teach me how to remain guy-free—at least for the time being—I shifted my attention to my plate, aiming to give my noodles the consideration they deserved.
It was no use. I couldn’t eat. As goofy as this might sound, I only hungered for witty remarks that would impress the good deputy. Just one problem. I couldn’t think of any. The only lines I conjured up were two Boo-Boo had used on me the night we met. One went something like, I seem to have lost my phone number. May I borrow yours? And the other was, I’m new in town, so could I get directions … to your house?
When Boo-Boo said them, I thought they were funny and sweet. But now, following nearly a year of counseling … Well, let’s just say that for the deputy, I wanted to go with something a little less revolting. I settled for, “Don’t you find police work here pretty boring compared to what you did in Minneapolis?”
The deputy smiled. Were those dimples? Another quiver, and this time I didn’t even attempt to fool myself. It wasn’t the air conditioning making me tingle.
“I like my job,” he replied, “but it’s not the only thing that’s important to me. Anyhow, on occasion, we bust a meth lab or catch someone crossing the border from Canada with a car full of weed. And there’s always petty theft.”
I made a show of nodding toward the Anderson sisters.
The deputy chuckled. “You caught their act, huh?” He leaned his elbows on the table and laced his fingers in front of his chin. “A few years ago I found them in here during the middle of the night. Harriet had pried the back door open with a crowbar. She claimed they were getting ready for a church luncheon, but they were just stealing food. Nonetheless, Margie insisted we drop the whole thing. She said her aunts apparently got a thrill sneaking around, and at their ages, they should be allowed to get their thrills any way they can.” He raised his coffee cup. “So that’s what they do when they’re not watching everyone else’s business from their windows.”
“Well, I bet you appreciate the extra eyes.” My voice was lilting. I’d succumbed to the flirt in me. Not a good sign. I was an inept flirt. It almost always ended badly. “Surely they make your job easier.”
“No, not really. And don’t call me Shirley.” He smirked as he raised his cup.
“Seriously, don’t you feel stifled here? Don’t you want to be … stimulated?”
Deputy Ryden almost choked on his coffee. “Why? What did you have in mind?”
I gasped. Oh, my God, did I just say that? Being a redhead, I blush easily, and, at that moment, I was positive my face was as red as a baboon’s ass. I felt like one too. “I meant stimulated professionally.”
“Oh.” He feigned disappointment. “As I said, we get an interesting case now and then.”
I dropped my chin and peered at the index card in front of me. It was a recipe for “regular” Jell-O salad. I made an effort to read through it, anything to avoid thinking about what I’d just said. But I couldn’t stay focused—and only partly because no one can maintain interest in Jell-O for more than a few seconds.
Chapter 13
Why didn’t you ask the deputy about Samantha Berg right away? It was yet another voice from inside my head.
Because, I thought I’d first put the guy at ease with some idle chit-chat.
But if you would have asked about Samantha Berg right off the bat, you wouldn’t have humiliated yourself.
That’s probably true, but I wanted to engage in a little small talk before broaching the subject of murder.
Well, I think small talk’s overrated.
And I think that falls in the category of “information you should have shared earlier.”
Why? You wouldn’t have listened anyway. You never do.
Huh? What’s that?
“Deputy Ryden,” I said, tired of arguing with myself, “were you working up here when Samantha Berg went missing?”
The deputy blinked, apparently thrown by my directness. “How did you hear about that?”
“Margie told me.”
“Oh.” He used another roll to mop tomato sauce from his plate. “Margie likes to talk.” He bit the roll in half.
“Well, did you know her?” Stay focused. And whatever you do, don’t flirt!
“Yeah.” The deputy answered around the food in his mouth. “I knew her.”
“And you worked the case?”
“The FBI led the murder investigation.”
“But you were assigned to it too, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.” He spoke cautiously, as if concerned about where the conversation was headed.
“And you local cops handled the missing person’s case, right?”
He shoved the rest of the roll in his mouth. “The FBI only got involved after her body was recovered.”
His face then took on the look of someone with something important on his mind. But when it became clear he wasn’t going to share it with me, I plowed ahead. “So how long was she missing?”
He stuck another forkful of food in his mouth. With his cheeks stuffed, he could only mumble, “A couple months.”
“She was gone a couple of months, and you couldn’t find her?”
He swallowed hard and frowned.
“Sorry,” I uttered. “Sometimes I’m not very tactful.”
He wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb and index finger. “You just don’t understand. We didn’t start looking for her right away.”
“Why not? Didn’t she have worried
family?”
“Nope. Contrary to what you said earlier, people don’t always have ties to the little towns they live in. Samantha, for instance, had no connection at all to Kennedy. She just moved here from North Dakota about a dozen years ago.”
“How come?”
He shrugged. “She told some folks she was hiding from an abusive boyfriend. Others heard she was starting over after her husband walked out when their kid got sick.”
I scooted forward, not sure I’d heard right over the chorus of laughter coming from the women in the booth behind me. “She had a kid?”
“Uh-huh. He was twelve or so when they arrived. He’s now grown and long gone.”
“What was wrong with him?”
“Asthma or something. Nothing serious.”
“So?” I said, urging him to continue.
“So, her stories didn’t check out.” He shifted in his seat, and the vinyl rustled beneath him. “There was a boyfriend but no record of violence. And her husband divorced her but not without fighting for custody of the kid. He said she only wanted the boy for the child support.”
“Sounds like she had trouble telling the truth.”
“You could say that.” His delivery was flat, void of inflection. He definitely wanted to drop the subject, but I wasn’t ready to let it go. Don’t forget, this was my story—my career—we were talking about.
My conscience immediately slapped me alongside the head. It’s not always all about you, Emme. You’re not the center of the universe, you know. In this case, there was a dead woman too. You may want to keep that in mind.
Appropriately chastised, I stated more self-righteously than I had any right to, “Even if she was a liar, Samantha Berg deserved to have her murder solved.”
The deputy set his fork on his plate. “No one said otherwise. But it’s hard to get people, even good people, to tell what they know about a crime they view as a community service.”
“She was disliked that much?”
He rubbed his hands down the sides of his face. “She wasn’t very nice. You might say her moral compass was broken.”
Hot Dish Heaven: A Murder Mystery With Recipes Page 7
