Hot Dish

by Brockway, Connie

  Steve cupped his chin in his hand and was watching Jenn with the same focus she remembered he’d shown in the freezer two decades before. It still had the same impact on her, too; she felt like she was the only woman on the planet. How could certain men do that? “Yeah?” he prompted.

  “I’d been accepted at the University of Minnesota for the spring,” she explained as she whisked together some cinnamon, maple syrup, and ginger, “but I had these contractual obligations with the town that would keep me here through the whole year. But I thought if I could just get them to dump me, I was home free.”

  She poured a little more vanilla into the pot along with the oatmeal and apples and stuck it in the oven. “So that fall, when homecoming rolled around, and everyone had dates and I didn’t and Heidi didn’t—”

  “For obvious reasons,” Heidi inserted.

  “I asked Heidi to be my date.”

  “That’s the big secret?” He sounded colossally disappointed.

  “Not exactly,” Heidi said.

  “I snuck in early and stuffed the ballot box with our names for homecoming king and queen.”

  “How … Carrie,” Steve said, still unimpressed.

  “Yeah. I thought so at the time, too. Don’t look like that. There was no blood involved. I wore my Miss Fawn Creek ball gown and tiara, and Heidi wore …”

  “Overalls,” Heidi said.

  “Overalls. And before we went, we drank a third of a bottle of aquavit.”

  “You must have been flying,” Steve said.

  “Stratosphere,” Jenn agreed. “Of course, as soon as they started tallying the ballots, they realized someone was cheating and decided not to announce any homecoming court at all, so I grabbed Heidi’s hand and hauled her up onto the stage and right there in front of everyone, including most of the city council who were there as chaperones, I dipped her and gave her a big, old wet one.”

  Heidi nodded. “No frenching, though.”

  For a second Steve just looked at Jenn. Then he began to smile, then grin, and then he laughed. Heidi started chuckling like an idiot and, damn, Jenn did, too.

  “That’s cold, Jenn,” he said. “You coulda at least slipped her a little tongue.”

  “Who wanted her tongue?” Heidi said, mock indignant. “She’s not my type.”

  “Did it work?” Steve asked, watching Jenn stick a tray of almonds in the oven to toast.

  “Nope,” she replied. “The school newspaper ran a picture of us—but the teachers confiscated most of them. Still, you’d think a little moral outrage would have been appropriate. All that happened was my parents had to go talk to the principal.”

  “Lucky for Jenny,” Heidi said. “You know the show she was on at the state fair?”

  He nodded. Liar.

  “They asked her to be on the show again about a week after homecoming. And the rest is history. Poor Jenny has been miserably maintaining the secret of her true sexual orientation ever since.”

  “Brokeback Mountain Biscuit,” Jenn agreed somberly.

  “Really?” Steve asked.

  “No.”

  His gullibility was cute. He’d even shaved before he’d come down, she realized in surprise. It didn’t improve matters greatly. He was still disheveled, disreputable, with a face like a funnel cake, craggy and brown and yummy. She liked well-groomed, successful manager types, she reminded herself. Guys who used after-shave. She just knew that Steve had never owned a bottle of after-shave in his life. But he’d smelled good anyway, she remembered. Like Life Buoy or Dial, something sharp and clean, and his scalp had been warm while his hair had been cool and silky beneath her fingers. Down, girl.

  She took the almonds out of the oven along with the porridge, carefully ladled the porridge into bowls, sprinkled the almonds over the tops, and set the bowls in front of Heidi and Steve. Steve looked up at Jenn with the eyes of a child on Christmas morning.

  “Didn’t anyone ever feed you?” she asked.

  “Not like this,” he answered reverently. He looked like any second he might stand up and start kissing her. That must have been why she still stood there over him like an idiot….

  The phone rang and Jenn snapped it up so it wouldn’t wake her mother. “Hello. Hallesbys’.”

  “Hello,” a male voice said. “Is Jenn Lind there?”

  She couldn’t contain the sigh that rose at his words. Jenn Lind, not Hallesby. No one in Fawn Creek called her Jenn Lind. Which meant it was either a reporter or one of the filming crew. Which meant it was time to get back to work.

  “This is Jenn Lind. To whom am I speaking, please?” It was strange that the Jenn mask didn’t fall quite as comfortably back into place this morning. But then, she’d never actually had to play the Jenn Lind role in Fawn Creek before.

  “Oh, Miss Lind! My name is Walt Dunkovich.” The guy paused, like maybe she should recognize the name.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Dunkovich,” she enthused. Damn it! She racked her brain. Had that been the name of the filming crew’s director? Or was he from some newsmagazine? Or ET?

  “Hi.” He made a gratified sound. “Say, I was wondering if you maybe could do me a little favor. You see, I’m like your biggest fan.”

  Okay, not the director. And the likelihood of him being a reporter also dipped to near zero. But a guy was her biggest fan? Not a straight guy.

  “I was wondering if … well, it would mean the world to me if I could meet you personally.”

  And how the hell had he gotten this number? “I’m sorry, Mr. Dunkovich. I wish I could but I am so overbooked right now and my schedule just doesn’t allow—”

  “Please,” he broke in. “I mean, I would’ve chased after those thieves no matter whose butter sculpture was being stolen—I didn’t even know it was your folks that were being robbed, but when I found out that Jenn Lind was these Hallesbys’ daughter, well, I was tickled, just tickled, that I could be of service.”

  Oh Christ. It was that guy. The guy who’d driven Emil Oberg’s Polaris off the lake overhang and crashed it while chasing after the butter head. Poor idiot.

  “Normally, I’d be happy to stand in line with your other fans, but the fact of the matter is, I’m a little indisposed, if you know what I mean.” His weak chuckle turned into a weak cough. “But if it would be too much trouble, I certainly understand …”

  “Oh, Mr. Dunkovich, I’m sorry. I misheard the name. Of course, I’d be delighted to visit you. You’re in the hospital, right? Just say when.”

  “Today works for me,” he chirped. “This morning works best of all.”

  “How about this afternoon?” She glanced at the clock.

  “I sure would appreciate it if you could come this morning. I might have to have more surgery this afternoon….” His voice trailed off.

  “Absolutely. The roads are pretty bad, so it’ll take a while but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “That’s swell, Miss Lind! I’m in room 323. Bye!”

  He hung up and Jenn pushed herself to her feet. “I gotta go see the guy who drove off the lake overlook. The one who was chasing after the butter thieves.”

  Heidi and Steve looked up from their bowls of porridge at her with polite indifference. Then their heads dipped once more to the task at hand. Steve made a nummy sound. “Hm.”

  “Save some for Dad, okay?” she said, heading out of the kitchen to get dressed. She wasn’t sure they heard her.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  8:55 a.m.

  Oxlip County Hospital

  Room 323

  Dunk was a little disappointed.

  He’d seen half a dozen broadcast pieces about her over the last few weeks, read the Twin City magazine spread on her, and even caught a rerun of her show this morning, and frankly, he’d have thought Jenn Lind in person would be more Hollywood.

  This woman looked like a successful real estate agent: creased slacks and tailored jacket, crisp shirt and smooth hair. Handsome? Okay, yeah. A babe? No. She wasn’t nearly as curvy she
looked on television. She didn’t own a third of Karin Ekkelstahl’s up-top bounty.

  And that famous Jenn Lind approachability? Gone missing. She looked a little suspicious, a little impatient, and irritated, though she was trying to mask it beneath a bright, facile smile. Dunk had been in Minnesota long enough to recognize that ploy. All for which Dunk was glad. Because Karin Ekkelstahl’s mothering had begun to awake his long-dormant conscience and he much preferred to let sleeping consciences lie.

  If it came down to it, he wouldn’t have much trouble blackmailing this woman. And it wasn’t like she couldn’t afford it.

  And Dunk needed to get this little transaction done before the yahoos who’d stolen the butter head realized that Steve Jaax would be willing to pay a lot more than twenty-five hundred dollars for its return. Dunk had no doubt that the guy who’d called this morning to say he’d “found” the sculpture and needed the reward “in cash” and preferred to have the exchange of “reward and butter head handled anonymously” was one of the assholes responsible for his present condition. He’d tried reassuring the guy in order to convince him to show up in person with the butter head—at which point he intended to have that sheriff jail his and his buddies’ sorry asses—but the guy had proven too wary.

  Damn, Dunk thought irritably as a fresh itch erupted under his body cast, he really would have liked to nail those guys.

  “Mr. Dunkovich?” Jenn Lind’s voice drew him back from vengeful thoughts. She was standing at the foot of his bed. “Was there anything in particular you wanted me to autograph for you, Mr. Dunkovich?”

  “I dunno.” He pushed himself higher on his pillows, looking around and finally pointing at the tray beside his bed and the menu he was supposed to mark off for his lunch. “How about that?”

  She leaned over, signing her name across the dessert options with a flourish, and straightened. “There. Allow me to thank you once more for trying to stop the thieves, Mr. Dunkovich. I’m sorry it ended badly for you.”

  “Yeah. About that,” he said, feeling his way. He hadn’t been a con man and a grifter all his life for nothing. A huge part of conning people was figuring them out, finding their tender spots and exploiting them to his advantage. “I feel really strongly about getting that sculpture back.”

  “Please, don’t worry about it.”

  “But I do,” he insisted. “I can’t let it go. I just can’t. I even put up a twenty-five-hundred-dollar reward for its return.”

  That stopped her. “That was you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But … why?”

  Time to go to work in earnest. “That doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that, well, some guys who say they have it have already contacted me and they want that twenty-five hundred dollars to bring it here.”

  She continued looking at him, waiting for him to get to the point.

  “Unfortunately,” he sighed, “the sad truth is, Miss Lind, that I don’t have twenty-five hundred dollars, and I don’t think these guys are going to return the sculpture out of a sense of civic duty, if you know what I mean. In fact, I strongly suspect these are the original thieves.”

  “Those assholes!”

  Her tone of betrayal was a little out of proportion to the comment, like she’d been the one these guys had screwed over. Well, lady, Dunk thought, you’re not the one lying here under half an inch of plaster. Still, all Dunk said was “Exactly.”

  “You should call the sheriff,” she said tightly.

  “Well,” Dunk said, “I was thinking more that you might want to put up the money.”

  She couldn’t have looked more amazed than if he’d thrown his pillow at her. “Ah … no.”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes popped wider. She took a step toward his bed, not away. A fighter, then, someone who confronted things. “What did you say?”

  “I said yes” he answered. “You see, I don’t have time to dick around with the sheriff and all that crap. I want that sculpture and I want it soon and don’t waste your breath asking why because it is my concern—”

  “Why the hell would you want the butter head?” she cut in.

  “I just said, ‘Don’t waste your breath asking,”’ he said in exasperation. “Let’s just say I’m an art lover and leave it at that.”

  “Let’s not.”

  Shit, he hated aggressive women and she was looking very Muhammad Ali, standing over him with her jaw thrust out and her hands on her hips and those pale eyes flinty. He liked feminine women, not overtailored probable lesbos.

  “What you should be concerned with here, Ms. Lind, is that I am going to get that sculpture and you are going to help me get it by bringing me the twenty-five hundred.”

  Now she really looked pissed. “And why would I do that, Mr. Dunkovich?”

  “Because you are a big star about to become a bigger star who is working for Dwight Davies, the biggest self-righteous prick in the country, who will fire your ass in a second if he sees a certain photo of you sucking face with your girlfriend.”

  Jenn jerked back as if he’d slapped her. He’d literally rocked her back on her heels. Bingo. Mission accomplished.

  “Where? Who told? Who were they?” Her voice was low and intense.

  They? Jenn Lind automatically assumed a “they?” That was interesting. Had a little conspiracy paranoia going on, did she? Huh. Who’d have thought it? She looked so well-adjusted. But he could play that … nothing easier.

  “Your fans here in Fawn Creek,” he said smoothly, just a hint of goading pleasure in his voice. “You really aren’t much of a people person, are you? I mean, I’m here for forty-eight hours, and bam, I get the down and dirty on Jenn Lind, the Honey of the Heartland.”

  She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Her face had closed, grown cold and controlled. Her whole body vibrated with outrage.

  “That’s all beside the point,” Dunk said. “I need you to pay these jerks. That’s it. You do that and everyone’s happy.”

  “Are they?” Her voice dripped ice. “What about all my fans here in town? What’s to keep one of them from—”

  “Ratting you out?” Dunk finished for her. “Come on. No one here wants you to be outed. They want you to be a star, honey, because they think it’s gonna help them somehow.”

  “Then why’d they tell you?” Laser blue, those eyes.

  He shrugged. “You know how it is when you got dirt on someone you think has gotten way above herself but you can’t use it. You just gotta tell someone. They only told me because they figure I wouldn’t care. But I do. I care twenty-five-hundred-dollars’ worth.”

  “And you have that picture?”

  “Probably one of the only Fawn Creek Clarions still around.”

  “Shit. And what’s to keep you from coming back again and again with it?”

  “Tell you what. You hand me twenty-five hundred and I’ll hand you that picture.” Not that he had it. No one did, at least that Karin knew about. Who’d keep a twenty-one-year-old school newspaper? Lucky for him, Jenn didn’t know that. She looked perfectly willing to believe that people kept their high school newspapers just on the off chance that some day something in it could be used to hurt her. Wow. She really didn’t think much of these people. For a second Dunk wondered why, but then what did he care? She had a weakness; he used it.

  The bottom line was that when she handed him the twenty-five hundred and he told her he didn’t have any picture, it would be too late. What was she going to do? Say the money he was holding was hers—and he had no doubt he could get her to hand him the cash—and that he’d blackmailed her for it? Just looking at the thread of panic hiding behind her enraged expression, he could tell that wasn’t going to happen. No, sir, she wasn’t going to risk it all for twenty-five hundred bucks. Which reminded him …

  “I’ll need that money in cash,” he said, “by five o’clock this afternoon.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money with me. I don’t even have my checkbook wit
h me. My ATM card is maxed out. Just how do you expect me to get this … this cash?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t much care. Borrow it?” This brought another topic to mind. A very important one. If what the sheriff had said was right, Steve Jaax was staying at Jenn Lind’s parents’ place. “And, Ms. Lind? I want to make this next part crystal clear. You are not going to tell anyone that I’ve been in touch with the thieves. Especially Steve Jaax. Got that?”

  She glared at him.

  “Got that?” he insisted.

  “I got it,” she snapped.

  A nurse—not Karin Ekkelstahl, Dunk realized with a stab of disappointment—appeared in the doorway. She took one look at Jenn’s face and froze. She tried on a tentative smile.

  “So, then, Jenny,” she said, “what is it I can do fer you?”

  Jenn Lind’s eyes had filled up with tears. Angry tears. Her face twisted and she bit hard on her lips before pivoting on her heels and stalking toward the door.

  “Get out of my way,” she snarled as she pushed past the startled nurse.

  The nurse’s penciled brows almost banged into her hairline. “Now I wonder what bee’s got in her bonnet.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  9:20 a.m.

  Oxlip County Hospital parking lot

  Jenn held it together all the way down the long corridor and into the elevator and to the first floor and through the lobby until she made it to the safety of her Subaru. There, behind the darkened window glass, she laid her forehead between her mittened hands on the steering wheel and cried.

  This could not be happening again. They could not be doing this to her again.

  Here she was again, on the very cusp of achieving a goal she’d worked her ass off for, and it was happening again. It was like that nightmare that had haunted her sleep for months after the state fair debacle, only in her dream the emcee had actually announced her name and she was actually standing on the podium, the crown inches from being placed on her head, and then, for God knew what reason, the people of Fawn Creek rose up en masse to slap it away. Only this was her waking life and they really had done it!