A Second Helping of Murder and Recipes: A Hot Dish Heaven Mystery

by Jeanne Cooney

  “So, nothing else? Not even pictures?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said. “With Harvey dead, he had no family left.”

  “Nothing in his truck either?”

  He looked at me suspiciously. “No. Why?”

  Margie arrived with their supper. “Eat up, boys,” she said, placing their food in front of them. “Holler if ya need anythin’.”

  Barbie slid from the booth, and I followed, only to circle around again. “Oh, just one more thing,” I said, pushing my fake glasses up my nose, “Do you know if Wally and Raleigh were acquainted with each other when they both lived in Fargo?”

  The deputies exchanged puzzled looks. “Wally and Raleigh? No, from what we understand, they never met until this fall, when Raleigh came up here to work beets. Why? What do you know?”

  I shook my head and offhandedly replied, “Oh, nothing.”

  * * *

  When we entered the kitchen, Margie rolled up the sleeves of her habit, letting them hang from her shoulders, and began stacking the dishwasher. “What did ya find out?”

  Wonder Woman answered, “The killer was definitely after something. Raleigh’s house was ransacked before the police got there.”

  “That must have been how the dog got out,” I added.

  “Trick or treat!” The three of us jumped, then spun around to find a medium-sized mermaid and a half-pint Cinderella standing on the threshold that separated the kitchen from the dining area. The little girls wore winter jackets over their costumes, along with knit hats, gloves, and snow boots. Nevertheless, because their jackets were open, we could see most of their costumes.

  “Oh, for cute,” I said. “Disney characters.” While I hated dressing up for Halloween, I enjoyed seeing kids have fun with the holiday.

  “I’m the Little Mermaid,” the older girl informed us. She had to be around seven.

  The younger one said nothing, choosing instead to stand on the side of her feet and stare at Barbie. “She’s Wonder Woman,” I told her. Right away, the little girl turned away. I’m not sure if it was because she was shy or completely overwhelmed by the wonder of Barbie’s womanhood.

  “So, where’s your ma?” Margie asked the question as she plunked a large Hershey bar in each of the plastic, pumpkin baskets the girls held.

  “She’s out front, talking to Dinky,” said the Little Mermaid. “Thanks, Margie.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetie. I like your costumes.”

  The older girl beamed. “Little Mermaid’s my favorite movie of all times.”

  “Yeah,” Margie agreed, “it’s a good one.”

  The girl peeked past Margie, at me. “What’s she supposed to be?”

  I stepped forward. “I’m a school girl. I have a backpack and everything.” I spun around so she could see it.

  “Hmm.” She didn’t appear impressed.

  She grabbed her little sister’s hand, and they headed out the room, the smaller one saying as they went, “That’s not a costume.”

  “Shh.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Margie shoved Dinky into the kitchen and onto one of the stools at the prep table. He wasn’t in costume, but given Margie’s stern expression, he probably wished he’d come as the Invisible Man.

  “Why’d ya imply that Janice killed Raleigh Cummin’s?” she asked.

  Dinky was a big man with a wide jaw and tree-trunk limbs. He towered over Margie. Yet he cowered beneath her glare. “I didn’t imply—”

  “Hogwash!” Margie stabbed a finger at him. “Don’t even try to deny it. Now, why’d ya do it?”

  Before Margie pulled Dinky into the kitchen, the three of us had agreed to take a hardline approach with him. Barbie was certain he’d be more apt to tell us about the card game and the other players if we rattled him first. And the best way to do that, she concluded, was to scare him into believing he was in trouble for exaggerating the details of the argument he heard between Janice and Raleigh Cummings. In my opinion, it wasn’t a great plan. Then again, what did I know about great plans? And since Margie didn’t want us questioning Wally, and no one knew the whereabouts of the President, and Buddy and I had failed to uncover anything important during our visit with Hunter, we didn’t have much choice but to question Dinky.

  “Geez, Margie,” he said, “it was just a joke. I didn’t mean—”

  Margie cut him off. “It was no joke, and ya know it.”

  Dinky stared at the floor. Granted, he could have up and walked away. None of us would have been able to stop him. Not even Wonder Woman. But he didn’t. He just sat there, taking whatever Margie wanted to dish out. “I was wrong to say what I did,” he finally confessed, his words barely audible.

  “Ya bet ya were.”

  “I’m sorry.” He whispered, his head bowed.

  “Ya better be.”

  “Now,” he continued, meekly raising his eyes, “can I get something to eat?”

  Margie shook her head as if she didn’t know what to do with the man. “Want the special?”

  “No, not really. I don’t like cabbage.”

  She surveyed the stove. “I have some Crouton Hot Dish. Wanna try that?”

  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  Margie grabbed a plate, filled it with hot dish, raw vegetables, and homemade dinner rolls, and delivered it to him. She then licked her lips, preparing for what I gathered was Round Two of his dressing down. Before uttering a single word, though, she got called to the dining area.

  “Go ahead and take care of your customers,” Barbie told her. “I’ll handle things here.”

  Margie left the room, and Barbie eagerly pulled up the other stool and sat down next to Dinky. “So why’d you want to cause Janice trouble?”

  Dinky asked for a glass of milk. I got it for him, then hung back.

  He drank about half of it before he said, “Barbie, you know Janice. She ain’t exactly a saint.”

  “And your point is?”

  “Well, I asked her out a couple times.” He dug into his food.

  “And?”

  He talked around the food in his mouth. “She laughed at me. Both times. Like I was some kind of slime ball or something. Hell, Hunter’s no great catch, and she’s been with him for years.”

  Barbie leaned closer, her boobs dangerously close to landing on his plate. “Let me make sure I understand. You asked Janice out. She declined. That hurt your feelings. So you decided to implicate her in a murder?”

  From the expression on his face, Dinky knew how despicable he sounded. “I wouldn’t of let anything really bad happen to her. I would of spoken up before that.”

  “But in the meantime, you’d let her get questioned by the cops, huh?” She flung her arms into the air, her gold bracelets clanging.

  Dinky pulled a bun apart and shrugged.

  “That was a rotten thing to do.”

  He slathered it with butter, his eyes never veering from his task. “Oh, come on. No one takes what I say all that serious anyhow. Why are you getting so bent out of shape?”

  “Dinky!”

  “Well, I was sick of her acting like she was better than me. She’s not, you know. I’ve got money, a farm, a nice truck.”

  “Dinky, you’re a shithead.” Barbie socked him in the shoulder.

  “No, I’m not. I’m nice.”

  “And humble.”

  “Ha, ha.” He swallowed a mouthful of bread. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t force someone to like you.”

  “She’s gone out with lots of guys. And I know for a fact she didn’t like all of them. Besides, I didn’t really care if she liked me or not. I just wanted her to—”

  “Stop! I’m well aware of what you wanted. But, Dinky, that’s downrigh
t creepy. She’s old enough to be your mother.” Barbie stretched her arms out in front of her. “See? Even the thought of it is giving me the heebie jeebies.”

  Dinky snorted. “Since when did you become such a spoilsport? Don’t exactly fit considering that outfit you’re almost wearing.”

  She slapped his arm. “There’s nothing wrong with my costume. It’s Halloween, for God sake.” She tugged on her bustier. It was sliding dangerously low again.

  Margie trudged back into the kitchen, her arms full of dirty dishes. “I think we’re almost done out there.” She emptied the dishes into the sink, and I began rinsing them, then stacking them in the dishwasher.

  “Well,” Barbie said, rising from her stool, “I wanted to wait for you before asking him about last weekend’s poker game.”

  Dinky jerked, like he’d been shocked. “We don’t talk about our games.”

  Sister Margie leaned over his shoulder. “You oughtta talk about this one, son. Bein’ one of your players got murdered, and the rest of ya are suspects in the crime, it’d be the smart thin’ to do.”

  “But that can’t be. Buddy wasn’t even—”

  “Wait right there!” With him sitting on a stool and Margie standing about as close to him as she could get, they were practically nose to nose. “We aren’t referrin’ to Buddy. He didn’t kill Raleigh. He didn’t have near the motive that the players in that game did.”

  Dinky placed one of his big bear paws on the metal table. “Now just a minute, Margie. I didn’t kill Raleigh Cummings. And neither did Biggie.” He glanced from Margie to Barbie and then to me. “We had no reason to kill him.”

  Barbie was right. He was shook. “You owed him money,” she said.

  Dinky huffed. “Biggie only lost a couple hundred, and it was just eight grand for me. That’s not all that much. I’ve lost way more and never killed anyone to keep from paying it.”

  I stepped in next to him, clutching one of my school-girl braids. “So you paid Raleigh?” The three of us now formed a semi-circle around the guy—a semi-circle of outlandishly dressed interrogators.

  Dinky’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t get a chance. I didn’t have that much cash on me, and he wanted it all at once, in one lump sum. So I told him I’d pay him the following week, after I went to the bank.”

  I pushed my glasses up my nose. “But you still hadn’t done so by the time he saw you in the city office on Tuesday afternoon.”

  Dinky leveled his gaze at me, suspicion filling his eyes. “How did you find out about that?” He answered his own question. “Janice told you, right?” He crimped his forehead. “She’s a real piece of work.”

  Barbie slapped the metal table, and Dinky almost fell off his stool. “Yeah, she’s a jerk for telling us that you and Raleigh argued, but you’re a stand-up guy for incriminating her in a murder because she wouldn’t put out.”

  It was Margie’s turn to shake her head. “Dinky, you’re better than that.”

  “I didn’t kill Raleigh Cummings.”

  She patted his shoulder. “I know you didn’t, son. But ya hafta tell us what happened, so we can figure out who did.”

  Dinky sat perfectly still, staring at the table. “I only took my time getting the money because he was such an asshole.” He flinched, seemingly embarrassed about swearing in front of a nun. It actually took a minute for the reality of the situation to register. “From the start of the game, he gloated. It was enough to make me puke.”

  “Why’d you invite him to play in the first place?” I asked.

  He wiggled around on the stool, the metal legs squeaking beneath his weight. “Well . . . umm . . . he said he wasn’t much of a card player, but he’d like to try his luck if we ever got a game together.”

  Barbie chuckled, her fists on her blue-pantied hips. “He hustled you! You asked him to play because you thought he’d be easy pickings. But he turned out to be a card shark.”

  He shot Barbie a defiant look. “Hunter was pretty sure he was cheating. He just couldn’t figure out how. None of us could.”

  “So he suckered you,” I repeated. “And naturally that made you mad, which, in turn, led you to string him along about getting paid.”

  “But I did get him his money. I went to the bank after our shift ended on Wednesday. You can even check. Then I went looking for him. But I couldn’t find him anywhere.”

  The questions were forming quickly in my mind now. “Did you stop by his house?”

  “I drove by Wednesday afternoon and again that night, but his truck wasn’t in the driveway, and he doesn’t have a garage, so I knew he wasn’t home.”

  Barbie muttered, “Yeah, by that time, his truck was already hidden down by the river.”

  “What was that?” Dinky was genuinely confused, which said a lot.

  “Nothing,” Barbie replied. “Nothing important.”

  I pressed on. “Dinky, at the end of the game, did any of you guys happen to give Raleigh IOUs or anything else to secure payment of your debts?”

  He reared back. “How’d you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That he made us sign IOUs.”

  “Well, you said he wasn’t a friendly guy.”

  “He was an asshole.”

  “Yeah, you might have mentioned that.”

  He set his jaw. His teeth were clenched. “No one around here makes anyone sign IOUs. We play on the honor system. And we’ve never had any trouble.”

  “But he—”

  “Had all of us sign them. All of us except Biggie. He paid him off right then and there.”

  I leaned to the side, resting my forearm on the table. “Has the sheriff talked to you?”

  Dinky licked his teeth with his tongue. His mouth was getting dry. “No. Why would he?”

  Barbie stepped up. “Dinky, you lost a fair amount of money to Raleigh. He made you sign an IOU, which he obviously planned to keep until he got paid. But he never got paid. Yet the IOU is gone.”

  “What?” Again Dinky was confused “What makes you say that?”

  Barbie sighed. “If your IOU had been on his body or in the house or pickup, the police would have found it and asked you about it, don’t you think?”

  Dinky’s face turned pale, and he quickly began pointing fingers. “Like I said, the other guys signed IOUs too. And a couple of them for a lot more money than mine. Besides, I tried to pay him. I just couldn’t find him.”

  “We believe ya.” Sister Margie patted his shoulder. “And we don’t want ya or anyone else gettin’ into trouble over this. No sir-ree. We just wanna make sure the guilty person is caught. That’s why we need your help.”

  “Well . . . umm . . . are you sure Buddy didn’t do it?” Dinky immediately shirked away. Apparently Margie’s loyalty to family was well known and respected—or feared—as the case may be. “I get that you don’t want it to be him,” he added, “but—”

  “Dinky,” I said, stepping between the two of them before Margie belted him. “If Buddy was the killer, the IOUs wouldn’t have disappeared. Remember, he didn’t play cards with you guys that night.”

  We let him mull that over before Barbie asked him again about the game. “Was it filled with tension? How about arguing? Did it get physical?”

  Dinky pushed his plate aside. I guess there was no point in pretending he could eat. He was too upset. “Well, like I told you already, none of us appreciated the way Cummings was acting. And Hunter made a bunch of comments about how he was probably cheating. But Cummings just kept saying over and over, ‘If you think I’m cheating, show everyone how I’m doing it. Otherwise, shut up and play, little man.’ Yeah, he called him ‘little man.’ And Hunter didn’t like that one bit.” He picked up his fork, only to set it down again. “This is making me nervous, you know. We don’t usually talk about our
poker games.”

  “Usually one of your players isn’t murdered,” I replied. “What’s more, I’m sure the police will be talking to you soon enough.”

  He gulped some milk. “Wall-eye was jumpy the whole time he was there. I don’t know why he even came. He never played with us before. And he really sucks at cards.” He glimpsed at Margie. “Sorry, but he does.”

  “Who invited him?” I asked.

  “No one. He just showed up. He must have overheard me talking to Cummings about it after one of our shifts. But it kind of worked out okay since Biggie wanted to leave. He said he was afraid he’d kill Cummings if he stuck—” Dinky’s eyes got big. “He . . . umm . . . didn’t really mean that, you know.”

  I nodded. “What about the President? What was he like during the game?”

  “Well, like I said, the President got his clock cleaned. Which was odd since he’s a decent player. A real blowhard, but a decent card player.” He rolled his eyes toward the top of his head, as if he could actually read what was on his mind. “Of course if Cummings was cheating, that would explain it. Although . . .”

  I waited for him to finish his thought. And when he didn’t, I urged him along. “Although what?”

  He slumped forward against the table. “I don’t know for sure. But there seemed to be something weird going on between Cummings and the President. Like they knew each other or something.”

  “Huh?” Margie grunted. “Raleigh and the President? Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” He sat straight up again. “See, we were already playing by the time the President showed up. And when he saw Cummings, he acted like he wanted to leave right away. But Cummings kept saying things like, ‘Oh, come on, you don’t want to leave. If you do, we’ll have to talk about you. And you wouldn’t like that.’ And then he’d laugh.”

  “Did you ask the President about it? Did you ask if they knew each other?”

  “Yeah. Afterwards. He said he’d never met the guy before. But he’d heard him over the farm radio a few times, so he knew he was a jerk. That’s why he considered leaving. But then he decided what the hell.”

  “Trick or treat!” The greeting came from the front door of the café, leading Margie to grab her candy bowl and head that way with me following along.