Hot Dish

by Brockway, Connie

  And that, everyone understood, would be the beginning of the end. With fifty-three full-time employees Minnesota Hockey Stix was the town’s largest employer. If it went, the domino effect would just lay this town to waste.

  Paul would hate that to happen. With a mere ten years of residency under his belt, Paul might still be a newcomer, but he loved this damn little town with the ardor that only a convert can bring. People took care of one another here. They had one another’s backs. No one living in a city—of which Paul was secretly an alumnus—could ever really understand how important that was. Why, hell, where else would the mayor hire a bunch of stoned slackers? Because in small towns, you looked after one another.

  “This Jaax guy is really coming all the way out from New York?” Ken asked.

  “Absolutely.” Another long hard look from Ken. The only thing a Minnesotan was sure of was death and … well, death.

  “Everything is going”—Paul checked himself—”pretty good. Only thing I’m concerned about is that I haven’t heard from Jenn Lind. You know she said no to us originally. I hope she don’t change her mind again.”

  “Don’t worry about Jenny,” Ken said stolidly. “She loves this town. She owes this town. And she knows it. Comes back all the time to get away from whatever it is people like that want to get away from. She’s probably out to her folks’ place right now.”

  “The Lodge, right?” It was either one of the most exclusive B and Bs in the Midwest or the most unsuccessful, because Paul had never met anyone who’d ever stayed there.

  “That’s the place.”

  “Well, that makes me feel some better, then, Ken.” In Minnesota there were no absolutes. One lived squarely in the center of the emotional spectrum, being some better and some worse, but never edging too far out in either direction.

  “Good.” They sat, staring off at a forty-five-degree angle from each other while Paul tried to think of some polite way to get rid of Ken. By Paul’s estimate, in about ten minutes, Ken would start blowing hard about the great hockey career he never had because he was too busy building a financial empire. Paul was not in the mood.

  “I got an idea,” he said when inspiration finally dawned. “Let’s drive up to the lake and check out that ice.”

  “It’s okay by me,” Ken said. “But why’dya want to?”

  “Well, Butter Sinykin broke through by the spring there last year, didn’t he?”

  “So?” Ken’s tone suggested Butter had gotten no better than he deserved. “That was April and Butter was hauling rip rock with his tractor. It’s December and we’re just gonna have a buncha folks sitting around on overturned pails, is all.”

  “Well, you can’t be too careful.” No phrase in the entire lexicon of secret code words known as Minnesotan was more calculated to draw a favorable response from a native than this, because, without a doubt, a guy could not be too careful.

  Without another word, Ken shoved himself to his feet, following Paul out of the city hall into the parking lot, where Paul’s GM half ton waited, the black umbilicus connecting its block heater to the electric socket lying on the ground like a frozen snake.

  Paul waited while Ken climbed into the cab and looked around. It had started to snow again, and though night had fallen, the light reflecting off the new snow had turned the sky above to pewter. Around the overhead arc lights, the snow flakes swirled like gnats around a bug zapper, thick and anxious, while on the edge of the parking lot, the windbreak of pines whispered. Fawn Creek, which honesty compelled a guy to admit it wasn’t all that comely most of the year, looked downright picturesque tonight—and more snow was promised.

  Better than pretty, this year’s unprecedented snowfall after three brown winters meant that the sound of snowmobiles, too long dormant, would once more be roaring through the winter landscape, bringing a smile to the face of every tourist-based operator in town. As well as bringing back the snowmobilers, the snow meant that the muzzle-loader deer season was bound to be a success, and that meant that this Sunday, when the sesquicentennial got under way with the opening fishing tournament, there would be Polaroids of trophy-sized bucks pinned to every corkboard in every diner and supermarket in town.

  And if the tourists didn’t want to snowmobile or hunt, there was the casino twenty miles to the north. They were holding their first annual all-amateur, dusk-to-dawn poker tournament this weekend, and that looked like it was going to be a big deal, too. The winner of the tournament was going to get a cash prize, aside from the pot, of one hundred thousand dollars.

  Best of all, no catastrophes had hit the country all week and hopefully none would because that meant that coming into the holiday season as it was, the network reporters would be cruising the AP briefs for human interest stories, and with both Jenn Lind and this sculptor coming to town, Fawn Creek had one tasty story. Why, the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis was doing a piece on them for the five o’clock news tonight.

  “You going to get in or what?” Ken’s muffled voice came from inside the truck.

  Paul smiled. “You bet.”

  Chapter Eleven

  5:20 p.m.

  The Ramsey County Adult Detention Facility

  Plymouth, Minnesota

  The Ramsey County Adult Detention Facility had a crappy lounge with a crappier television watched by the crappiest bunch of sad-ass losers “Dunk” Dunkovich had ever had the misfortune to see. And Dunk, slouched in a leatherette armchair, had seen a lot.

  They all stared up at the TV watching the local news, afraid that their panicked faces were going to be plastered across the metropolitan viewing area, revealing them as losers. Like it was a secret.

  “Though not unexpected, few in key management positions are expected to retain their positions after Davies takes possession of the company,” the news anchor guy was saying.

  “I believe it Davies is a complete prick,” a forty-something guy with a Florida tan and a fifty-dollar haircut said. He claimed to be a consultant from Chicago here on a long-term project and that he got lonely and went to bars. Evidently, he got lonely a lot. Because this was his third DWI.

  “How would you know?” another guy asked.

  “I did a thing for his company a few years back. Had to report to old Dwight himself. He fired me the first time we met and all because I swore in front of his secretary. Shit”—he sneered—”all I said was ‘shit.’ The guy is a sanctimonious, tight-assed dog turd.”

  “And when we come back, a related story. A small town gets some big-name visitors.”

  Dunk’s fellow detainees went back to babbling among themselves. Most were in for DWIs, a couple for failing to comply with restraining orders, and some, like Dunk, for violating the terms of their parole. Losers to a man.

  Except for Dunk. He caught sight of his reflection in the darkened window overlooking the parking lot and smoothed back his hair. By God, he still had that “look,” like he was the top salesman for some high-tech business, or maybe a junior college teacher. This latest trip to the workhouse was just bad luck. He’d be out of here in another fifteen hours and back in the game.

  But what game? Grifting? Gaffing some Lotto tickets? Scamming high school hotties at the malls by signing them up for his “model agency?”

  Small change. His looks weren’t going to last forever. He was fifty years old and getting older and he didn’t have a pension and lately that had started bothering him. He needed something big. Something to fund the Dunk Dunkovich Retirement Plan. What he needed was an IRA—

  “—ALREADY KNOW THAT LOCAL CELEBRITY JENN LIND WILL BE STARRING IN THE NATIONALLY SYNDICATED COMFORTS OF HOME.”

  Someone had cranked the volume way up on the television. A ratty-looking kid popped up out of his seat and readjusted the volume on the set while the anchor guy flashed more teeth than a shark.

  “Jenn launched her career at the Minnesota State Fair twenty-two years ago as a finalist in the Minnesota Dairy Farmer Federation’s Buttercup pageant.”

  A dated
yearbook picture of a good-looking blonde, who’d probably been the wet dream of every football player in her school, smiled down from the screen.

  “Though the pageant is no longer held, recently the hundred-pound block of butter that had been carved into her likeness was discovered in her parents’ barn. Evidently, Mom Hallesby had kept it in a freezer all these years.”

  An old photograph of a yellowish sculpture bearing a distinct resemblance to Jenn Lind appeared on the screen. Something about it sparked a memory. Dunk pushed himself higher up in his chair.

  “Hey, Dunkovich, lean back! I can’t see through you, man!”

  “Shut up,” Dunk muttered.

  “The Guinness Book of World Records people are trying to determine if this is, in fact, the oldest surviving butter sculpture in existence,” the anchor guy’s disembodied voice informed them. “But it’s not its age that is attracting attention in New York. It’s the man who chiseled it, internationally celebrated sculptor Steven Jaax, who’s causing the stir. Jaax has agreed to appear with Miss Lind this weekend as co-grand marshal of Fawn Creek’s sesquicentennial parade right alongside his butter sculpture!”

  The camera cut to a lean, affable-looking guy with unkempt salt-and-pepper hair. A crowd of reporters were shoving microphones in his face. Steve Jaax? Yeah. That was his name. Dunk leaned closer. The guy didn’t look all that different from when he’d shared a cell with Dunk a couple decades ago.

  “Mr. Jaax, your last piece sold for nearly four hundred thousand dollars.”

  Dunk’s jaw dropped.

  “What price would you put on the butter sculpture?” The reporter was making a joke. Jaax didn’t look like he got it. He gave an elaborate shrug.

  “I’m guessing it wouldn’t come out too well in an actual appraisal. It’s butter and it’s old butter, so it’s gotta have deteriorated, you know?” he said. “It has loads of sentimental value for the people who’ve kept it all these years. And Ms. hind would probably say it’s priceless because it is a bust of her. And, well, the mayor of Fawn Creek thinks a lot of it. He’s named it co-grand marshal of the town’s sesquicentennial. So who knows what someone might pay for it for the right reasons?”

  The reporter was nodding in a dazed fashion. Jaax, Dunk thought, was prone to oversharing.

  “You must have been pretty surprised to hear of its existence,” the reporter said.

  “Man, I have never been more surprised in my life, not even when I found out my ex-wife, the ex-supermodel Fabulousa, was bi,” Jaax said. “Well, that wasn’t really that big of a surprise, so I was actually more surprised about the butter head because I’d read that it had been melted down for pancakes or something. I was devastated.”

  He hadn’t been devastated; he’d laughed his ass off. Dunk should know; he’d been watching the newscast carrying the story right alongside him. Jaax had been his cellmate.

  It hadn’t taken much prompting to get Jaax to tell Dunk the whole story and why not? The butter head and the key buried in it were gone, lost forever on a rural field trampled over by ten thousand people gorging themselves on corn on the cob. Jaax had spilled about his ex, the “seminal piece” he’d had stolen from her, the crypt, the key, and the fact that the only person besides his ex-wife who could get to the statue without using the key was dead. Then he’d laughed.

  At the time Dunk had been skeptical about whether Jaax was as hot shit as he seemed to think he was. Well, Dunk thought, looking at the swarm of reporters, apparently Jaax hadn’t underestimated himself. If the statue in that mausoleum vault was half as “important” as Jaax had claimed, it would be worth a pretty penny by now.

  “Mr. Jaax,” a reporter was saying, “you have been quoted many times as saying that this butter sculpture was responsible for the renaissance of your career and gave you the inspiration for your resin-and-fiber optic pieces. You must be excited to see it again.”

  Jaax grinned like a rat in a room full of cheese. “Man, you have no idea.”

  Dunk grinned, too.

  Because he knew just what Jaax meant.

  Chapter Twelve

  Same time

  Portia’s Tavern, Fawn Creek

  “Look, Ned, the city isn’t paying you to park that plow in Duddie’s lot here and spend the afternoon drinking beer with your buddies.”

  Ned Soderberg, innocently sitting at the bar enjoying a beer with Eric Erickson and Jimmy Turvold, spun around at the sound of the mayor’s voice. Paul LeDuc stood just inside the door to Portia’s Tavern, dripping melting snow from his bomber cap ear wings onto the lapels of his black wool dress coat.

  Now that Paul was mayor, he dressed like some TV lawyer, Ned thought, eyeing him sourly. How the hell had LeDuc gotten to be mayor, anyways? He wasn’t an American and he wasn’t all that great a hockey player, neither, and let’s just say some folks weren’t too thrilled they’d been sold that particular two-teated sow.

  “Did you hear me, Ned?”

  “Yup, Paul. I sure did.” Ned nodded soberly, sliding off the bar stool and standing to attention. Apparently, old Paul had been driving by, seen the plows in the parking lot, and decided it was his civic duty to spend a few minutes reaming him and Jimmy Turvold a couple new ones. Asshole.

  Hell, a guy couldn’t be sure of getting a little peace and quiet anywhere in this stupid town anymore. It wasn’t like he was gettin’ paid squat for driving that plow, neither. He’d like to see that Paul manhandle a two-ton plow down an icy highway for eleven bucks an hour.

  “Well, then, get your ass out there, Neddie. And that goes for you, too, Jimmy.” Paul’s gaze shot to where Turv was trying unsuccessfully to fade into the shadows. Eric, the only one of them currently not employed by the city of Fawn Creek, slurped his beer contentedly.

  “And I want the sidewalk in front of the city hall shoveled and salted before the offices open in the morning. Got that?” Paul said.

  “You bet, Mayor!” Ned snapped smartly, making a show of zipping up his insulated coveralls. It was a tight fit and the zipper protested the climb up and over Ned’s impressive keg gut.

  Turv, too, hopped off his stool, squatted down, and began snapping closed the metal buckles on his Snowpacs. He looked up, smiling winningly. “Been at it all day, Mayor,” he puffed. “Since before sunrise. Just warming up is all. Saw Ned driving down the southbound and—”

  “I don’t care, Turv,” Paul broke in. “Just get back to work. Both of you. Weatherman’s calling for another four inches by midnight.” The door opened and a swirl of fresh snow buffeted in against his exit.

  “Stupid chinook,” Turv muttered, climbing back up on his stool.

  “I’d like to tell LeDuc where to get off,” Ned said, jerking the zipper on his coveralls down to his waist. Not that he would act on the urge. Since his grandma had started demanding payment for room and board, and his other income venues had been literally plowed under, he needed this job. He wouldn’t put it past the old biddy to kick him out if he was late with the rent, neither. Hilda Soderberg was a heartless woman. He woulda been glad to vacate, too. Maybe move in with Eric, except … well, heartless she was but she was also a damn good cook.

  “Hey, Dudster, ‘nother beer here, dear.” Ned picked up his Leinie’s bottle and wiggled it suggestively at Duddie who was polishing glasses on the other side of the bar and staring at the television set suspended in the corner of the room. Duddie probably hadn’t even noticed the mayor and his pal had been here. Duddie loved his television.

  “Let’s see the money, honey,” Duddie said without bothering to look around.

  There was no money and old Duds didn’t extend credit. Not since the well had gone dry. The dope well.

  For the entire summer, Ned and Jimmy and Eric had babysat a quarter acre of dope, hauling water by hand from the Lake (a few yards from where they’d cleverly sown their crop), carefully pruning each little plant, staking their little stems, and making sure they were well-camouflaged from the highway by a thick wall of tall weeds and g
rass. They’d been only a few weeks from harvest when he and Turv had gotten calls from the mayor telling them to drive the grader and the front-end loader out to the Lake.

  Ned had thought LeDuc was going to show them which ditches to mow.

  Instead, they got there to find LeDuc and the whole damn city council waiting for them wearing stupid plastic construction site helmets, which they’d worn the whole shitty day as they personally supervised the clearing of a new parking area for the reams of tourists they were sure their shitty sesquicentennial ice fishing tournament was going to bring in.

  Ned took his last swig of beer, recalling the expression on Turv’s face. He’d thought old Turv was going to die of a broken heart. He’d seen the tears tracking muddy courses down his sunburned cheeks when their vehicles had passed. He hadn’t tried to hide his own tears, neither. There was no shame in it. The only shame was that all that excellent dope had been lost on account of some damn birthday party a bunch of assholes were throwing for a dead town, fer chrissakes!

  And Eric and Turv and him? All their initiative, which even Ned conceded was little and rare enough not to be squandered nor taken for granted, gone in the span of one afternoon. Plowed under. Scraped clean.

  Damn. He needed a beer.

  He leaned back on his stool and reached around Turv, jabbing Eric in the shoulder. “Float me a couple bucks?”