Hot Dish

by Brockway, Connie

  “No. I can keep that quiet. Just you and me and Uncle Sam.”

  “Okay,” she said and snapped open her purse, withdrawing a thick wad of bills, mostly tens and twenties. “Where do I sign up?”

  She was incredible. Heads had started turning the minute she’d entered, most notable among them that of the Poker Network cameraman, who’d taken one look, stubbed out the cigarette he’d been puffing, and picked up his camera.

  He’d been following her ever since.

  As had what was quickly becoming an impromptu “mystery woman” fan club. They crowded around the table she was playing at now, jostling one another for a better view. She was pretty impressive, Paul had to admit. She played like a professional, her face utterly impassive as she slowly but surely worked her way through first one group of competition and then another.

  At this rate, she and Ken would end up playing against each other.

  Wearily, Paul rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the first rasp of morning stubble sprouting on his chin. His eyes stung from the smoke, and his mouth felt cottony and probably smelled foul. He was already bone-tired and—he glanced down at his wrist watch—there were still at least another six hours to go before the tournament ended and the visitors went back to town and he could go home to bed for a few hours’ rest before the next day’s festivities began.

  Which reminded him: he’d better call Ned and Jimmy and make sure they were out plowing.

  * * *

  “Yeah, yeah, I understand, mayor!” Ned slammed down the phone and turned to Eric and Turv. “The mayor wants us out plowing an hour before sunrise.”

  Turv got up and stretched, a flurry of cheese doodle crumbs raining from his lap. The munchies hit Turv harder than most. “We better get to bed then,” he said.

  “I suppose. Just think, you guys, by nine o’clock tomorrow morning, I’ll be telling Paul LeDuc where he can drive his plow.” The thought made Ned smile. “I know we coulda seen if Jaax would be willing to up the ante, but fact is, I’m getting a little sick of this.” He flapped his hand toward the butter head.

  In point of fact, Dunkovich had unnerved Ned that morning when he’d threatened to do unspeakable things to him if he did go to Jaax. Not that he’d told Turv and Eric about that part of the conversation. Nor did he intend to.

  “And we’re not greedy bastards, you know,” he added, peeking from the corner of his eyes to see if this bit of bullshit would be accepted. It was. “Yup,” he went on expansively, “our luck has changed! We’re golden, guys. Twenty-four carat. Nothing can stop us now.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell Paul LeDuc to screw himself now?” Eric asked.

  Ned looked at him in pity. Sometimes Eric could be a real moron. “Because, Eric, a guy can’t be too careful.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  6:05 a.m.

  The Lodge

  Fawn Creek, Minnesota

  Heidi Olmsted, worried that Bruno might not be adjusting to his new role as Celebrity Companion, decided to take advantage of one of the few mornings she didn’t feel like heaving her guts out and drive to the Lodge. Blizzards didn’t bother Heidi, who had raced the Iditarod five times, and she knew Jenny liked to get up before dawn to begin the busy business of being Jenn Lind, so she wasn’t worried about waking her when she arrived before dawn.

  She went to the kitchen door and peered through the window, fully expecting to see Cash sitting at the table, furtively packing away his day’s portion of forbidden calories. Instead she saw a big, solid-looking, middle-aged man in a ruby red dressing robe, his silver hair neatly combed, his cheeks so closely shaved they gleamed, gracefully buttering the piece of toast he held in a beautifully manicured hand.

  Heidi had no idea who he was.

  Her gaze fell to the floor. A pair of jean-clad legs lay protruding out from the other side of the table. The rest of the body was lost to view. The thought had just occurred to Heidi that the man at the table might have killed the man on the floor when the man at the table looked up and saw her. He smiled and, using the butter knife, waved for her to come in.

  She hesitated. On the one hand, she had another life to consider these days. On the other, she owed it to the Hallesbys, all of whom she was very fond of, to confront their potential murderer. Or what if he had them tied up somewhere? Stranger things had happened in Fawn Creek. But then the man lumbered to his feet and Heidi realized how easily she could outmaneuver him, so she pushed the door open and stepped inside, eyeing him uncertainly.

  “Hello.” He had an elegant, cultured voice shaded with an accent Heidi recognized as German. “I am Verie Meuwissen, sole proprietor of the works of Steve Jaax.”

  “Where is Steve?”

  Verie pursed his lips and inclined his head in the direction of the legs. Heidi inched sideways until she had a view of the man lying on the floor. It was Steve Jaax and he was most definitely alive. His forearm, flung over his face, obscured most of his features but his chest rose and fell easily, or at least as easily as possible with a giant malamute head on it.

  “Hi, Heidi,” Steve said. He sounded melancholy. Bruno opened his eyes and gave her a thump of his tail in recognition but otherwise didn’t make any effort to get up. So then, Bruno was easing into his new role without too much trouble.

  “Hi.”

  “Please,” Verie said, “won’t you have a seat, Miss …”

  “Heidi Olmsted but Heidi is fine.”

  “Excellent.” Verie beamed and pulled out a seat for her. Feeling a little like she’d just arrived in Oz, Heidi sat. Verie waited patiently for her to settle herself and returned to his side of the table, where he snapped open his cloth napkin and let it float to his lap.

  “I have been informed, sub rosa, of course,” he said, “that in order to survive the culinary experience here, it is imperative to fuel the engine early, before the cook arises.” He held held up a plate of toast. “Toast?”

  She took a slice.

  “Coffee?”

  She nodded gratefully.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she asked, nodding at Steve.

  Verie poured her cup of coffee and handed it to her. “Last night he had a revelation of some personal magnitude, which he is all in a dither to share with Ms. Lind but the drat woman has gone missing, in spite of pledges to call him, so he’s in a peeve. He has been awake or rather, I should say, he tells me he has been awake all night, waiting here by the phone for her call. I suspect he slept on the floor. Either way, I am embarrassed for him, though I have tried to be supportive by rising at this ungodly hour to breakfast with him.”

  “Why would he do that?” Heidi asked curiously.

  “He fancies himself in love with her. Sugar?”

  “What?” Heidi said. Oh, sure, she’d noticed the sparks yesterday. But this had to be a one-sided infatuation. She couldn’t imagine Jenny doing anything impulsive or unplanned or unwise. Like a relationship with Steve Jaax. “Does he overreact every time he has a crush?”

  “I don’t have crushes,” Steve announced from the floor.

  Verie leaned over the table, motioning her to do likewise. “It has progressed beyond infatuation,” he said in a stage whisper. “No gifts were exchanged but apparently bodily fluids were.”

  Heidi drew back.

  “Um.” Verie nodded confidingly. “It was all very Coen brothers. Very ‘If This Fish House Is Rockin’, Don’t Come Knockin.”’

  “No! They did it in the fish house?” She couldn’t believe it. Jenny Hallesby doing the horizontal tango with a relative stranger was stretching credibility but Jenny Hallesby having sex in a fish house during a fishing tournament? Amazing.

  Maybe there was hope for her yet. And if Steve actually did love her … Jenn Hallesby had made Heidi’s last two years in high school, which could have been pretty miserable, not only bearable but enjoyable. In Heidi’s opinion, no one deserved a love affair more than Jenny.

  “Does Steve think he’s in love often?” she asked and wai
ted breathlessly for Verie’s answer, amused by herself. Pregnancy had made a romantic of her.

  Verie paused to consider her question, dabbing at his mouth with his napkin. “No,” he finally said. “Now that you mention it, not since …” He leaned sideways. “What was your third wife’s name, dear boy?”

  “Margot.”

  “Ah, yes. Thank you.” He straightened. “Not since Mar-got. That was nine years ago.”

  “Maybe he really does love Jenny,” Heidi suggested.

  “It’s possible,” Verie allowed, picking up his toast and spreading jam on it.

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” Steve said reproachfully from the floor.

  Heidi put aside her natural shyness, made bold by her loyalty to Jenn. “All right,” she said, “why do you love Jenny, Steve?”

  Steve didn’t answer. His arm remained covering his eyes and he stayed motionless for so long that Heidi had begun to suspect that he’d fallen asleep when he finally spoke. “I … complete her.”

  Heidi set her coffee mug on the table with a bang. “Oh fer God’s sake …” she muttered in disgust.

  Steve dropped his arm and rolled over, Bruno’s head dropping to the floor with a thunk.

  “No,” he said, climbing to his feet. “I’m good for her. I’ve never been good for someone before. I’ve always been probably not such a good idea. But I’m a good idea for Jenn. Do you know where she is?”

  “Nah-uh. I just came to see how Bruno was.”

  “I thought his name was Prince,” Verie said.

  “That’s just an endearment, Verie,” Steve said, his guilty gaze flickering to Heidi.

  “If you renamed Bruno—” The phone rang.

  With an expression of intense relief, Steve reached over and snapped it up. “Good morning. This is the Lodge, the Hallesby family’s bed and breakfast and future studio of sculptor—What? Jenny? Is that you? Where are you?”

  His basset hound-homely-handsome face creased with frustration, he looked over at Verie. “I can barely hear her. The connection keeps drop—Jenny? Yeah. I hear you now.” He squeezed the phone to his ear. “No. You don’t owe me any explanation.”

  He was quiet a minute, but from the exasperation on his face, Heidi could tell he wasn’t getting too much of whatever it was Jenny was saying. Then he said, “It’s a moot point. I already have it. You don’t need to—I said I ALREADY HAVE IT! Jenny? Jenny!”

  With a quick, annoyed movement, he slapped the receiver back on the base.

  “Where is she?” Heidi asked.

  “At the casino, making the finals in some poker tournament.”

  “What? Jenny doesn’t gamble. Why would she enter a poker tournament?”

  “She told me this guy who’s put out the ransom for the butter head is threatening to tell the AMS people, and by extension Dwight Davies, about your homecoming kiss if she doesn’t come up with enough money to outbid me for it. The prize for the tournament is a hundred thousand.”

  “Holy crap.”

  “Yup.”

  “A kiss? That’s ridiculous,” Verie said.

  “Yup,” Steve said, raking back his hair with one hand. “If I hadn’t been so … Damn it.”

  “But why did she call you?” Heidi asked.

  Steve cast her a glance as guilty as it was pleased. “She knew I wanted it and she is beginning to suspect that she might just win this tournament. She wanted to tell me why I wasn’t going to get the butter head and that she was really sorry.”

  “But you said you had it,” Heidi said slowly, not feeling particularly enlightened.

  “Not the butter head. The thing that was hid in the butter head but I don’t think she heard me.” His face darkened. “She also told me who she was playing against in the last round, and one of them is Ken Holmberg.”

  Heidi sat back in her chair and slapped her palm against the table. “Good. If she’s got to gamble, I hope she whips his pompous ass.”

  “I don’t think you do,” said Steve seriously, wiping away Heidi’s smile. “I overheard that guy in the grocery store today. He’s being audited by the bank tomorrow, and from what he said, I don’t think the results are going to make anyone happy. I think,” Steve said, choosing his words carefully, “I think this guy is up at that tournament trying to win the wherewithal to make up the difference in some pension he’s underfunded.”

  “Shit,” Heidi said. “Shit. If Minnesota Hockey Stix folds that means about fifty people out of work. That means fifty families with no income, no insurance, and no pensions. Most of them will have no choice but to leave.” She shook her head. “Do you know what the loss of fifty families means in a town this size?”

  Steve headed for the back hall. A second later he emerged with Cash’s parka, the keys to the truck jangling in his hand.

  “What do you think you are doing, Steven?” Verie asked. “This isn’t your problem. This isn’t your hometown. It isn’t like you to interfere.”

  “Maybe it is this time,” Steve said soberly. “Tell Cash I borrowed the truck again but I’ll bring it back full.” And with that, he was gone, leaving Heidi looking at Verie askance.

  “But where is he going?” she asked.

  Verie expelled an extravagant sigh. “I think he’s gone to save the town.”

  Chapter Forty-nine

  6:10 a.m.

  Hilda Soderberg’s kitchen

  Fawn Creek, Minnesota

  Hilda Soderberg was cursing as she hit the garage opener. Seventy years she’d been making aebleskiver and never once an accident, but today, getting the cast-iron pan out of the overhead cupboard, it had slipped from her hand and fallen on her foot. It hurt like a helvete and it was getting worse. She thought maybe she’d broken something, and as she had to put on a funeral supper, which she had no intention of missing, she supposed she’d best go to the hospital so if they wanted to put a cast on it or something, they could get it done with quick.

  She expected Neddie back anytime now, but Neddie wasn’t always the most dependable person in the world, and he might stop off to visit one of his no-account friends. So Hilda, being that breed of northern Minnesotan who wouldn’t trouble the devil for a light, bundled herself in layers of warm clothing and hobbled to the detached garage, knowing she would find Neddie’s snowmobile parked inside since Neddie would have driven the Chevy to the city garage.

  Sure enough, there it was just where he’d left it. She hit the garage opener and pocketed the remote she kept on the table by the door. The hospital was only half a mile away, so she didn’t think twice about straddling the seat and starting the motor.

  She did wonder a bit about whatever it was that Neddie still had bungee-corded to the back loosely wrapped with a sheet of burlap, but only a bit. Her foot hurt her like the devil.

  She gunned the motor.

  Dunk was bored and anxious all at the same time. He kept looking at the clock, counting down the minutes until Jenn Lind brought him his money and he could get his butter head. The exchange, to take place at Storybook Land, was scheduled for nine o’clock, so he’d given Jenny until eight thirty to get him the cash. It was only ten after six now.

  He picked up the remote and flipped through the channels. Nothing, nothing, and weather. The hospital didn’t subscribe to cable. He turned off the set, wiggling in his bed.

  His skin beneath the heavy body cast was beginning to itch. He thought about hitting the nurse’s button and hoping Karin would come and stick that little bamboo whatchamacallit down his neck but Karin was off today.

  He wished she wasn’t.

  Maybe after this was all done, he’d mosey on back to town and take her out to dinner somewhere. And afterward they’d mosey on back to her place and he’d see if he could get her to put on the ducky scrubs so he could take them off.

  The thought brought to mind her many and repeated urgings for him to get up and move around as much as possible so he’d be “back in top form soon.” He wondered if she’d
meant anything by that.

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and carefully lifted himself into an upright position. Not bad. Not bad at all. He walked around the bed, feeling more optimistic about the speed of his recovery with each step, and headed for the window.

  It was still snowing, by God. Was it ever clear up here? They must have about five feet of snow on the ground….

  He stared, unable to believe his eyes. The butter head, perched jauntily on the back of a snowmobile, coyly draped in fluttering brown burlap, sat right under his window in full view. He rubbed a hand across his eyes. Still there.

  His eyes widened as he realized the potential here. He could have the key to that mausoleum crypt without paying these suckers a penny. And when Jenn Lind showed up, he could just pocket that cash for himself. If he could get down to that snowmobile before whoever drove it here did, he could drive the butter head somewhere out in the woods and stash it under some brush somewhere until such time as he could return, melt it down, and retrieve that key. Then he could hitchhike back to the hospital.

  If.

  He hobbled to the narrow closet and opened it. His boots lay neatly on the floor, the snowmobile suit he’d been wearing at the time of the accident hanging above it. Excellent.

  As time was a definite factor here, Dunk didn’t have the luxury of easing into the snowmobile suit; instead, he yanked it on and that hurt like hell. He balanced awkwardly beside the bed and shoved his bare feet into the boots as the idea of trying to bend over to pull on socks was enough to make him break into a cold sweat. Then he cautiously stuck his head out the door of his room and, seeing no one nearby, hobbled as quickly as possible to the emergency stairwell.