Hot Dish

by Brockway, Connie

  “And you thought Fawn Creek would be a good place to take it?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Sure.” He looked genuinely surprised by the question. “I loved my days in Minnesota. You don’t know what a good thing you got here. No cell phones—”

  “I hate to ruin the rural bliss thing, but cells are supposed to work here. Please note my use of the word ‘supposed.”’

  “Really? Damn.”

  “You can always hope yours fails.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Then why—”

  “Hi!” Steve chirruped brightly, looking past her.

  Jenn turned her head. The pair of guys who’d been lunching in Smelka’s had emerged from the diner.

  They took one look at Steve grinning with maniacal goodwill in their direction, assumed he could not possibly be grinning at them, and spun about to look for whoever it was who warranted that sort of suspicious friendliness. When they discovered no one behind them, they turned back around in confusion.

  Almost in unison, they realized that Steve was smiling at them. They blinked, took a halting step toward him, stuttered to a stop, looked at each other, looked at Steve, and by God, a few facial muscles on each seamed and leathery face twitched into something half resembling a smile. But before they could catch each other at it, they ducked their heads and hurried by.

  “Shy.” Steve spoke matter-of-factly. “I get that sometimes. They probably never thought they’d meet someone like me.”

  “Someone like you?”

  “Yeah. You know. An internationally celebrated artist.” He didn’t look the least self-conscious. Not a whit of modesty clouded his absurdly blue eyes. “I’m practically an American icon.”

  Okay. She hated to pop the dirigible that was the Steve Jaax ego—“Mr. Jaax, let me do you a favor.”

  He tilted his head and for a second looked so much like her former neighbor’s bloodhound when asked if he wanted a treat that she forgot what she’d been about to say. She’d always liked that dog.

  “Call me Steve,” he said encouragingly, that confident, winning smile still in place. So confident and guileless, that she was beginning to feel like a heel for the scrap of schaudenfreude she’d been experiencing just by thinking about telling him the facts of Fawn Creek celebrity. Oh, well.

  “This isn’t New York. Or London. Or Paris. This is Minnesota. Northern Minnesota. I don’t know what you’re expecting but I can pretty well guarantee you’re not going to get it. Not here.” She waited to see if any of this was sinking in. He was listening intently, again like the neighbor’s dog when she used to give it really specific commands. Commands it didn’t understand. “People up here don’t do celebrity.”

  “Geez, Jenn.” He glanced away, his expression distinctly embarrassed. “Look, I certainly am not up here looking for a little local hookup. I would never use my name—”

  Heat exploded up her throat and into her cheeks. “That is not what I meant!”

  “Oh?”

  “I said people here don’t do celebrity, not don’t do celebrities!” Her tone was withering.

  “Oh?” He puzzled over the distinction. The discomfort faded from his face. Connection made. “I see.”

  Not that he seemed embarrassed by his comment. Nahuh. Instead, he simply drew his brows together in an expression Jenn immediately identified as “This is fascinating! Please. Tell me more,” because it was exactly the same as an expression she used when speaking to Dwight Davies.

  “Look,” she said, and her voice was testy, “I’m only trying to keep you from making a fool out of yourself by expecting the people here to fawn all over you. I’ve been in and out of this town for twenty-three years now and no one has ever even asked me for my—”

  “Can I have your autograph?” a breathless young voice gushed, as a herd of teenage girls, identifiable as such by the spray-paint fit of their jeans under the pink puffy baffles of their ski jackets, rushed past Jenn and surrounded Jaax. “You are Steve Jaax, right?”

  “Yes,” Steve said, smiling politely. “I am.”

  No. Not possible. Why would these little cupcakes give a rat’s patootie about Steve Jaax? They wouldn’t. They’d been watching the media hype from the cities and got caught up in it—that was all. But, a small hurt voice inside her whimpered, she’d been hyped, too….

  “Now you girls just let Mr. Jaax get settled before you start pestering him for autographs. And why aren’t you girls in school, anyway?”

  Jenn looked around. Ken Holmberg chugged down the street toward them, his portly body snugged into a black cashmere coat, ruddy face all smiles, the tip of his well-oiled comb-over flickering in the wind. At the sound of his voice, the girls broke and scattered like a covey of quail, dispersing down the side streets and along the sidewalks to regroup later.

  “Mr. Jaax? It’s a pleasure to meet you again.” Ken stuck out his hand and shook Steve’s. “Ken Holmberg. I was councilman of Fawn Creek back in eighty-four. Still am. As well as owner of the Minnesota Hockey Stix Company,” he added importantly.

  “Catchy name.” Steve nodded.

  “I was the guy in the freezer with you just after you finished the sculpture of Jenny—oh, hey, Jenn! Didn’t see you there—when they, well, when they—”

  “Arrested me,” Jaax finished for him. “Oh, yeah. I remember. I was acquitted, you know. She couldn’t prove anything. And I had an alibi.”

  Ken looked a little nonplussed by the turn of the conversation. “I didn’t. But that’s great.”

  “Yeah.” Jaax nodded some more. “So … ah … where is it? My butter head.”

  The world had gone along quite nicely for twenty years without the butter head’s presence, Jenn thought. It was too bad it couldn’t just continue that way, but if it couldn’t, Ken and even Steve sure as hell weren’t going to appropriate it. “That would be my parents ‘butter head,” she said.

  Both men ignored her.

  “Well, that’s a good question, now, Steve,” Ken was saying in his best “big dog” voice. “And I wish t’hell I could answer it for you. But the truth is, I can’t. Someone busted into the Hallesbys’ barn night before last and stole it. They were on snowmobiles.”

  “What?” Jenn asked.

  “What?” Steve echoed even louder.

  Ken’s head dipped up and down, like a glum bobble-head doll. “Yup. We even got a witness. Some tourist was out on one of the trails that night and saw the thieves while they were at it. He took out after ‘em cross-country, stupid bastard, but ended up going airborne over the Lake. Got himself busted up pretty good in the bargain. He’s over t’the hospital in a body cast.”

  “But you’re looking for it, right?” Jaax asked. “You have the cops looking for these thieves, right?”

  “They don’t have cops here,” Jenn supplied helpfully. “They have a sheriff.” Einer Hahn, on whom Jenn had once had a tiny crush in high school.

  “Sheriff then!” Jaax looked a little wild-eyed. “The sheriff is searching for these guys, right? You’ve talked to this tourist, right? And you’re investigating—”

  Ken went from troubled bearer of bad news to compassionate comforter in a heartbeat. And they said Minnesotans lacked dramatic range. “We only have a sheriff and a deputy sheriff here, Mr. Jaax, and they’re busy fellas already, what with the celebration and all. But you rest assured they’re looking into it, all right.”

  “They’re all off on the muzzle-loader opener, aren’t they?” Jenn asked with sudden inspiration. They were deer hunting and Ken was covering. God! Fawn Creek could run amuck with aliens, and if it happened during December, no one would even report it lest it interfere with the muzzle-loader opener.

  Ken gave her a sullen glance. “Maybe.”

  “What? What’s a muzzle?” Steve asked.

  “Nothing to do with nothing, Mr. Jaax,” Ken said. “More’n likely this is just some prank. Teenagers. You know how they can be, Jenn.” He speared her with a look. Point taken.
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br />   “Yeah,” she agreed. She wasn’t too worried he’d rat her out. Over the years, they’d developed a symbiotic relationship. Ken supported the myth that she was a hometown girl, and every now and then she said he made nice hockey sticks. At least his sticks were nice, which is more than she could say for him. Her parents called him “Babbitt of the Bog.” He was a not so secret misogynist who masqueraded as a paternal figure of goodwill. None of his employees, Jenn knew, were women.

  But he probably was right. Why would anyone steal a butter head except as a joke? “Kids.”

  “You’re not going to assume that, are you?” Jaax sounded incredulous. “I mean, someone was robbed. This woman’s”—he gestured at Jenn—”this poor woman’s elderly parents have been violated! That’s a felony offense.”

  “No one had a weapon, Mr. Jaax.”

  “That anyone saw. What about this tourist guy? Maybe he knows something that could lead you to the criminals.”

  “He’s a stranger in town, Mr. Jaax. Came up for that poker tournament at the casino. Besides, it was dark and there were flurries and everyone was wearing helmets. I know this is a disappointment to you.” Ken’s gaze bounced off Steve to Jenn. “Both of you. But it’s bound to show up sooner or later.”

  Steve’s shoulders lifted and fell in a deep sigh.

  “Look, Mr. Jaax,” Ken said, “I hope this doesn’t affect your plans, but if you want to forget the whole thing and go back to New York, I guess I’d understand.”

  “What about me?” Jenn asked. “Can I skedaddle, too, Ken? Because without a butter head …”

  “Ha-ha,” Ken said, his eyes never leaving Steve. “Well, Mr. Jaax, can I convince you it’s still worth your while to stay?”

  Jaax stared at him. “Are you kidding? I’m not leaving. I … I promised I’d be your grand marshal”—a quick glance at Jenn—”co-marshal, and that’s what I plan to do. If you still want me …?”

  “Of course, we do! Dang right!” Ken pumped Jaax’s hand.

  Steve smiled, withdrew his hand, hunched his shoulders, and shivered. “Geez, it’s cold. What is it, thirty below?”

  “Twenty above,” Jenn said.

  “Let me go get my hat,” he said, taking off for the Mercedes tipped up on the opposite curb.

  “’Bout time you used your celebrity to bring a little attention to your hometown,” Ken finally muttered, smiling, his eyes on Steve, who was struggling up the snow mound.

  Jenn stared at him, sure she must have misheard him because Ken had neither a sense of humor nor irony, and in order for him to call Fawn Creek her hometown, you’d have to have one or the other. Or sarcasm. That must have been it; he was being sarcastic.

  “It’s not my hometown, and you and I both know it,” she said through her teeth, smiling pleasantly at Steve, who was digging around in a duffel bag without much success.

  Ken glanced at her, looking startled. “Okay. Maybe not. But your media pals don’t know that, and I think we’d just as soon keep it that way, eh?”

  We’d? He meant her. She was the one with a career built on a shaky foundation. Great, she’d been here an hour, and she was already getting veiled threats from the town Babbitt.

  She didn’t dignify his comment with an answer, waiting while Steve recrossed the street. He was bare-headed. He looked sheepish. “I didn’t think of a hat. I know, stupid.”

  Ken clapped him on the shoulder, his snub nose bright red with the cold. “That’s okay, Mr. Jaax. We got plenty of hats here,” he said. “In the meantime, why don’t you let me drive you over to the Valu-Inn?”

  Steve, whose gaze kept shooting around the streets like he expected to spy the thief trying to sneak the stolen sculpture past them under his coat, did a double-take.

  “The motel? I’m not staying there. It was booked up. I’m staying at some place called—” He dug into his jacket pocket until he found a scrap of paper. He held it at arm’s length and squinted. “The Lodge.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  10:30 a.m.

  Oxlip County Hospital

  Room 323

  A soft, cool hand brushed his forehead and Dunk swam up out of a happy pool of morphine, eyes rolling back in his head. “Mommy?”

  The light touch disappeared and Dunk opened his eyes to a moon-faced female floating a foot above him, a no-nonsense expression on her face as she tugged at the pillow behind his head.

  Definitely not Mommy.

  He’d been drifting in and out of consciousness more frequently today—they must have been cutting back on his drugs—and every time he’d been “in,” she’d been in the room nursing about.

  “So you’re awake, then.” It sounded as much like an accusation as a statement. Adroitly, she slipped the pillow further beneath his shoulders and added another behind his head. Then she smoothed the bedsheet over the body cast that wrapped him from his hips to his shoulders. “How are you feeling?”

  “Awful,” he mumbled.

  “Well. You look better.” She stood back. “Some.”

  “I’m not.” He wanted to dive back into that nice pool of semiconsciousness, buoyed on a cushion of morphine.

  “You broke a couple ribs and cracked your pelvis. You’re just lucky that Polaris didn’t land on your head.”

  “Polaris …” A memory floated sluggishly out of his clouded mind: snowflakes, trees, and the machine beneath him suddenly taking flight over a silvery lake far, far below as far, far ahead of him the butter head—the butter head! Those bastards had stolen his butter head!

  He jolted upright. “DAMN, THAT HURTS!”

  The nurse pushed him flat. “Yeah, I betcha it does. Poppin’ up like that. Lie still.” She began sponging off the sweat popping out over his forehead.

  “The butter sculpture,” he gasped. “Where is it?”

  Her mouth pursed up. “Fool thing’s gone. Least I haven’t heard anything about anyone finding it.”

  He whimpered. He couldn’t help himself. He had to get his hands on that butter head before Jaax did. As soon as Jaax dug the key out of it, all Dunk’s newly hatched hopes for financial security vanished.

  “Now, then, I gotta say how it was real decent of you to try and stop those good-for-nothings from stealing that sculpture.” A tiny ember of … something warmed her brown eyes. “Not sure it was worth getting all busted up for, but it’s the principle of a thing that counts, I always say, and you got principles.”

  First he’d ever heard of it.

  “But you can’t let some fool butter head sculpture upset you. You need to rest.”

  She thought he was some sort of hero, Dunk realized in amazement. Well, this was new. Maybe useful. At least he was thinking clearly now, pain having a tendency to focus his thoughts.

  “You can imagine,” he said, gazing up at her with somber eyes, “that I’d hate to think I ended up here all busted up for nothing. I’d really like to see that the—butter head, you say it is?—butter head gets returned to its rightful owners.”

  She regarded him approvingly.

  “Principles being principles,” he added. “You’ll let me know if you hear something, won’t you? It would make me feel better.”

  “You bet, Mr. Dunkovich.” She gave a curt nod. “Now I expect you’d like to call your family? We didn’t find any emergency number in your wallet, so we couldn’t notify anyone. But if you don’t feel up to making the call, I can do it for you.”

  He liked her accent. It was all soft and round and comfortable. Like her ass in those baby blue drawstring pants … Geezus, he must be higher than he realized because not only had the pain disappeared—well, not disappeared, exactly; it was there, just cruising beneath the radar—but because as a rule he liked his women younger, thinner, and a whole lot more exciting than this solid-looking woman with her inexpressive face and Clairol brown hair showing a bit of gray at the roots. She had really nice skin, though. Peaches and cream.

  “I don’t have any family,” he said.

  “Oh.” The c
orners of her mouth twitched once before going dormant again. “Can I get you anyt’ing else, then?”

  “Nah.” He had some hard thinking to do.

  “How ‘bout a sponge bath?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “Should I turn on the television maybe?”

  “Sure.”

  She found the universal remote on the tray next to his bed and clicked on the TV set suspended on the wall opposite him. “What do you like?”

  “Whatever.” His thoughts had started moving again. How the hell was he going to get that damn sculpture before Jaax showed up in town? He had to be coming any day. How was he going to get that damn sculpture at all, come to think of it?

  Even if he could figure out who’d taken it, what could he do about it? He wasn’t even mobile. He needed an accomplice.

  He glanced at the nurse still fussing around the room. No way. Not Miss “Principles are Principles.”

  As Dunk watched, she suddenly looked up at the television set. Dunk followed her gaze to where Jenn Lind’s Midwest Madonna face glowed with warmth and decency from the picture tube.

  “—Minnesota’s quintessential hostess, Jenn Lind, is taking some well-deserved time off before moving to New York to begin her duties as hostess of Comforts of Home. She’ll be helping her hometown of Fawn Creek celebrate their sesquicentennial by acting as their grand marshal. Now that’s ‘Minnesota Nice.”’

  His ministering angel snorted. It wasn’t a little snort, either, and her face wore a “tell me another” expression.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Nuthin’.”

  “No, really. Why’d you sound like that?”

  “I just laugh every time someone holds Jenn Hallesby up as this ideal woman.”

  “You know her?” Hm. A little small-town rivalry?