Hot Dish

by Brockway, Connie

  Which meant Jell-O, and while Hilda’s second drawer on the left side of the sink never held less than twenty packages in various flavors, what she didn’t have was miniature marsh-mallows, and you can’t make a decent pineapple-lime Jell-O salad without marshmallows and Johanna certainly deserved a decent salad for her sendoff. Which meant Hilda would have to go to the grocery store.

  Now normally, Hilda would have walked the eight blocks to the store but snow completely choked the sidewalks and covered the street. It occurred to her that Neddie wasn’t too slick at his plowing job, but just the fact that he’d been gainfully employed by the city for over a year now kept her biting her tongue. Besides, Neddie seemed to be straightening up some lately. And she knew the snowstorms, one hard on the heel of another, were keeping him up and on the highways to all hours of the night. Fact was, he was still in bed, and for once she wasn’t going to yell at him to get out of it. Besides, once he woke up, he’d be in the kitchen stealing the food for Johanna’s funeral and that just wasn’t right. So, instead, Hilda resigned herself to taking his noisy, stinkin’ snowmobile out again.

  She headed for the back door, pausing to poke her head into Neddie’s bedroom. She didn’t worry that he might have guests. He wasn’t really a bad boy. Just lazy. Neddie had been acting different the last few days, too, spending a lot less time in front of the television and more time outdoors. Maybe he was finally starting to wake up and smell the coffee.

  It was with this optimistic thought in mind that Hilda decided to make Neddie a special lunch when she got back from Food Faire: julbrodsigrid, potatoes with dill and homemade sausage. She smiled, feeling fonder of Neddie than she had in a long time. Dear Neddie loved to eat.

  Chapter Forty-six

  3:35 p.m.

  The Food Faire parking lot

  “Explain to me why we are in this grocery store again, dear boy,” Verie intoned as they waited for the stocky female cashier to bag his purchase.

  “You’ll just have to trust me on this,” Steve said. “The Lodge is unique and wonderful, and you are lucky you are being allowed to stay there. They don’t accept guests.”

  “What a novel marketing strategy,” Verie said. “A B and B that doesn’t take guests.”

  “Exactly,” Steve agreed, then suddenly snapped his fingers. “I need Doritos,” he said to the cashier. “Where are they?”

  The young cashier pointed to the far corner of the store. “Take your time. It’s not like we’re overrun with customers.”

  That was an understatement, Steve thought as he trotted down the center aisle, passing an old lady jabbing some poor teenage stock clerk in the breastbone and demanding to know where he’d shelved the multicolored miniature marsh-mallows. Steve nabbed a box of Pop-Tarts on his way to the snack section, which was, he noted, in weird proximity to the pharmacy aisle. He stopped to peruse the choices—cool ranch or classic?—when he heard a male voice on the other side of the aisle, where the aspirin would have been. He was clearly talking on his cell phone.

  “Look, Stan, thanks for calling me back. I know you’ve heard it before and I hate like heck to call you at home on a Sunday, but can’t you put off the bank on that audit a while longer? I’ve got the money. I’ve just got to make it liquid, you know?”

  Steve could practically see the sweat pouring off this poor shmuck’s forehead, he sounded so miserable. He shouldn’t be listening. He plucked the classic Doritos giant bag from the top shelf and heard the guy on the other side say, “Okay, then. If you gotta on Monday, you gotta on Monday. It’ll be funded. Fully funded, yeah. Ninety thousand. I know”—his voice had gone from wheedling to spiteful—“and then you can apologize when you sign that loan over to me. Bye then.”

  Quickly, before the poor guy came around the corner and was embarrassed, Steve took off down the aisle. At the cashier, he tossed his bag down and grabbed a pack of gum.

  Verie eyed the food. “B and Bs generally offer some form of sustenance at some point during one’s stay. Typically breakfast. Thus the name bed and breakfast.”

  “You will fall in love with Nina Hallesby. But not her cooking. In fact, before we head back there, we should go to Smelka’s.” Steve fished some crumpled bills out of his pocket and handed them to the cashier just as a man, the same man he’d met the day he arrived, came up to the counter with a bottle of double-strength aspirin.

  “Smelka’s,” Verie said. “You have gone native, Steven. Have you ordered your mukluks, yet?”

  “Wait until you have had a semlor and then sneer,” Steve said, nodding at the guy—Holmes? Hamburg?—who flushed and nodded back.

  “Hey, Mr. Holmberg,” the cashier said as she loaded the bags into Steve’s waiting arms.

  Steve accepted them and headed out of the store, his thoughts moving along unfamiliarly un-Stevecentric paths. This guy needed to fund something or other at the bank before he got a loan approved. Apparently, he really wanted that loan. And apparently, he was embarrassed about whatever straits he’d gotten himself into. The guy was some industry leader here in town…. That was it. He made hockey sticks and he was the biggest single employer in Fawn Creek. Poor bastard.

  Steve pushed the store’s glass door open using his shoulder and headed toward Cash’s truck, which Cash had lent him this morning so Steve wouldn’t be “stuck on that lake all day if you don’t have to.” Jenn had gone off to the motel with her agent in her Subaru. He wondered how long she would be and hoped it wouldn’t be long.

  Steve liked being with Jenn. He wanted to hear her take on this Holmberg guy and maybe explain to her again why it was okay to seek vengeance against his ex-wife, because he had the unpleasant suspicion he hadn’t done a very good job. At least, he wouldn’t have been convinced and he really didn’t want Jenn to think poorly of him. For the first time in God knew how long, another person’s opinion of him as a human being, not as an artist, really, excruciatingly mattered. Love, he decided with delicious melancholy, could be painful.

  He opened the truck door and was shoving the bags in while Verie went around to the passenger side when his eye was caught by a fluttering brown sheet. Steve backed the truck out of the parking space and looked. Between the truck and a big, shiny new gas-guzzling SUV, there was a snow-mobile, something large and covered with burlap strapped to its rear end. A gust of wind snickered across the lot and plastered the material against the form beneath.

  Steve stopped the truck. He knew that form. He’d given birth to it.

  “What are you doing, Steven?” Verie called from within the truck cab.

  “I’ll be just a minute.” He moved toward it, his eyes never straying from the snowmobile, as though afraid if he blinked it would disappear. He reached out, his heart jackhammering in his chest, and unhooked the bungee holding the burlap in place and pulled it up.

  It was the butter head. But the butter head so changed, so hideously transformed she was barely recognizable. Little patches of freezer burn splotched the weirdly flaky surface of her “skin,” and her brow, once a lovely, flawless expanse, had sunk in, now creating a simian shelf of brow above her drooping eyes. Someone had cut off her rooster’s comb bang and turned it into a pair of balloon tire lips. Her left ear was missing.

  “Poor butter head,” Steve murmured, running his hands lightly over the disfigured face. It was like the Butter Head of Dorian Gray, only that would be Jenny Lind. It was a good thing Jenny wasn’t here; she’d likely be dousing it with lighter fluid by now. This reminded Steve that he was in a public area, hovering over stolen property. There was no question of him calling the cops. Now that he’d actually seen his poor baby, he decided she’d be better put out of her misery or at least, for the sake of Jenny’s vanity, kept out of the public eye, and really, he only wanted one thing from her. The key.

  He closed his eyes briefly, imagining Fabulousa’s shriek of defeat when he called to tell her what he had. Oddly, the imagined rage didn’t evoke nearly the satisfaction that he’d have expected. But then, the r
eality was sure not to disappoint.

  Quickly, he skirted around to her back side. It was still there: the big curl behind her right ear. He looked around for something to dig with and spotted a snow scraper lying on the dash of the SUV next to him.

  God bless Fawn Creek, he thought fondly. No one locked their cars.

  Five minutes later he held a small metal key in his hand. He flicked it once in the air, catching it deftly as he headed back toward the truck.

  “This sounds extremely shady, Steve,” Verie said, from where he sat next to Steve. They’d turned up a sloping drive and were creeping toward the top.

  “It is,” Steve said. “But, Verie … Muse in the House!” On the ride to the Lodge, he’d told Verie everything as his friend’s placid countenance grew more amazed with each passing minute. “It was never included as part of the divorce settlement because you can’t award something neither party has. So I show up with it twenty some years after the fact, and as they say, possession is nine-tenths of the law. I’ll say it was a gift from an admirer who bought it on the black market.”

  “They’ll never believe that.”

  “I don’t care!” Steve said gleefully. “What’s she going to do? You can’t steal something you own, can you? And when Muse went missing, we were still married.”

  They pulled up in front of the Lodge and Steve turned the engine off. He climbed out of the cab, collected the grocery bags, and started up the slope toward the front door. Verie pulled his antique alligator-trimmed suitcase from the floor and began trudging after him.

  “I’m going to love it here,” Steve said, the image of the barn doors flung wide and steel and sparks and fire flaring within filled his head, marching right alongside the image of Jenny and him eating hotdish on the bench under the pine trees.

  “Hm,” Verie said, pausing at the top of the slight incline to catch his breath and let his gaze travel over the Lodge. “Is it safe?”

  “Where you’ll be staying it is. It’s dangerous where me and Prince sleep.”

  “Prince?” Verie’s face lit with delight. “Dear boy! I’ve been waiting forever for you to come out—”

  “Prince is my dog.”

  The delight faded. “I knew it was too good to be true. And since when have you had a dog?”

  “Since here,” Steve said, turning the knob and ramming his shoulder into the door.

  It took three tries before it finally flew open. Steve stepped aside and Verie entered on tentative steps, like someone expecting an ambush. He took one look at the haphazard interior with its seventies-style living room suite and swung his hooded gaze toward Steve. “Charming.”

  “Is that you, Steve?” a man called.

  “That’s Cash,” Steve informed Verie.

  Cash arrived a second later followed by Prince, who took one look at Steve and went into paroxysms of joy. Gingerly, Verie sidestepped the happy reunion taking place mostly on the floor and extended his hand to Cash. “Thank you, sir,” he intoned, “for allowing me to stay in your home. I understand I am a rare exception to an understandable rule.”

  “Nina is going to love you,” Cash said, shaking his hand. On cue, Nina appeared in the doorway. Today she was wearing Audrey Hepburn ski pants and a Tyrol patterned sweater.

  Verie played his part to perfection, gliding across the floor and taking Nina’s hand. Brushing his lips across her knuckles, he declared himself “enchanted.” Not to be outdone, Nina tipped her head to a regal degree and pronounced her pleasure at meeting so celebrated an art authority. Any observer would have sworn her hand was kissed on a daily basis by diplomats and ambassadors, and just as Steve knew he would, Verie reacted with amazed delight. In short, they fell for each other like a ton of bricks, Nina offering to take Verie on a tour and Verie insisting only if she allowed him to offer her his arm.

  They strolled off in total harmony, leaving Steve and Cash behind, and finally Steve could ask the question uppermost in his mind.

  “Where’s Jenny?” Light of my life, goddess of my hearth, he might have added had he not intuited this might be a bit much for her father.

  “She called a little while ago. She’s still at the Valu-Inn with Natalie, her agent, and said she would probably stay with her the night. She said there’s some stuff they have to hammer out concerning AMS,” Cash finished, looking disgruntled.

  “The whole night?” Steve echoed unhappily. It wasn’t just that he wanted to see her—he just wasn’t as eager to make the call to Fabulousa as he thought he should be and he wanted to know why and Jenny—clear-sighted, practical Jenny—would have some insights. He also just wanted to be with her. He liked being with her.

  “She also said she’d call you later.” Cash shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “Not as much as I am,” Steve said.

  Having delivered his message, Cash picked up the newspaper Steve had bought for him and wandered off toward the great room. Alone, Steve stuck his hand in his pocket and withdrew the crypt key. He’d spent twenty years anticipating this moment. What the hell was he thinking? No, he hadn’t. When he thought about it, which wasn’t all that often, he’d certainly anticipated the next few moments with relish. Unholy relish.

  Yup. There was nothing wrong with unholy relish.

  He headed for the kitchen. He had a call to make.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  12:15 a.m.

  Monday, December 11

  Blue Lake Casino

  The snow and wind that had kept the poker players in the city were also keeping the fishermen who’d come up for the sesquicentennial off Fawn Creek’s lakes, streets, and snowmobile trails. As Fawn Creek had a dearth of nightlife, the fishermen had headed north, bringing with them a full complement of Fawn Creekians. The town’s movers and shakers followed their guests, nipping at their heels like nervous sheepdogs, afraid their charges would get lost. Among them was Paul LeDuc, who had grabbed a stool at a slot machine by the poker tables, where he had a pretty good view of the entire casino floor.

  He was at the casino for one reason alone: duty. Duty to the sesquicentennial, to their town, and to many of the families in that town. Someone definitely needed to keep an eye on things. As mayor, it seemed natural that the duty should fall to him.

  Hopefully, by tomorrow things would have righted themselves. “Things” being the huge percentage of people here from Fawn Creek, not only the tourists and fishermen but townspeople, his townspeople. Worse, the fools were betting on this fool tournament and betting heavily, too. Including Ken Holmberg, who seemed to have lost his mind. Ken had entered the casino with the fevered look of an addict, marched right up to the registration table, and slapped down a thousand dollars to enter the tournament.

  Paul was worried about Ken. He really was. A sheen of oily sweat covered Ken’s round, troll-like face, and his comb-over kept sliding off his balding dome. He had a feverish quality to him that went beyond the physical. When Paul had questioned Ken about the wisdom of gambling, he’d grabbed hold of Paul’s wrist with shaking fingers and declared he intended to let “Providence make the call”—whatever the hell that meant.

  Paul, who’d gotten more intelligence from his wife earlier today, had a feeling Ken’s luck and his drive had less to do with the divine than with desperation. Ken was trying to fund that damn pension before he was publicly exposed as a crook, which would force him to leave the town in shame.

  But so far, Ken was doing okay, too. He’d made it through the first round of play and was cleaning up at the second table. Paul wished he could feel good about it since Ken sure as hell did. With each hand he won, he seemed to gain more confidence. He wasn’t sweating quite as freely as he had earlier, and the uncharacteristic tentativeness and humility with which he’d earlier addressed Paul had disappeared. His usual smug, overbearing manner was quickly returning.

  He must have felt Paul watching him because he tossed his two pair faceup on the table with an arrogant flourish, caught Paul’s eye, and gave a complacent shrug, lifti
ng his thumb heavenward as if to say, The Big Guy’s with me.

  Paul managed not to shake his head and turned around on his stool, noting that the guy from Ripley’s Believe It or Not was chowing down on a burger at the bar while the entire crew from AMS was dolefully plugging nickels into the slot machines and sipping the free beers Ed White, the casino’s manager, had ordered up in the hopes of loosening up some inhibitions. Not local inhibitions, Paul knew because Ed—who was at heart a good guy—had confided that he didn’t encourage the Fawn Creekians to gamble because he didn’t want to have to pay for a lot of community goodwill Gamblers Anonymous stays.

  The Poker Network’s cameraman was wandering around shooting random footage. Earlier Ed had also confided that the cameraman was here returning a favor to the assistant manager but so far hadn’t found anything interesting enough to hang a story on. That had abruptly changed when she showed up.

  Paul had been talking to his wife on his cell phone, seated in the booth next to the registration table, and had bent double under his own table in order to hear his wife over the din in the casino when he’d heard a woman ask, “If I played in your tournament, would you have to know my name?”

  “Yes,” Ed had said. He sounded surprised and excited. “You know, we have to report it for tax purposes and that sort of thing.”

  Paul, interested, had quickly finished the call. Cautiously, he’d unfolded from his crouch and lifted himself up to peek over the top of the banquette.

  “Crap,” she said. “Would anyone else?”

  She wore a black wig and wraparound sunglasses, her face covered in a thick layer of beige makeup with bloodred lipstick extending way beyond the edge of her natural lip line. Not a hint of emotion showed on her smooth countenance. She might have been wearing one of those semi-translucent Halloween masks. She also wore what had to be, in Ed’s admittedly limited experience, the ugliest evening gown he’d ever seen. It was far too small for her figure and her bosom overflowed its neckline like a half-set custard.