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

by Jeanne Cooney

  “Hi, guys,” Margie called to an eclectic group of children. There was a pirate, an angel, a cowboy, and a panda. With their winter wear under their outfits, the pirate, angel, and cowboy were a little chubby. But the panda outfit, consisting of a fur hat and suit, along with black boots and mittens, was perfect for hiding extra layers of clothing. “Are ya havin’ fun?” Margie dropped giant Hershey bars into their baskets.

  “Yeah, Margie,” the cowboy answered, a wide, toothless grin parting his freckled face, “this is my most favorite day of the year.”

  “Hey,” his buddy, the pirate, shouted at me, “what are you supposed to be?”

  I shrugged, somewhat leery after the reaction I’d gotten from the Disney characters. “I’m . . . umm . . . a school girl. I have a backpack and everything.” I made a quarter turn, just in case they truly wanted to see the whole costume. They didn’t. None of them even said a word until the angel suggested they leave.

  “My mom’s walking us around,” she told Margie. “She’s waiting outside. She told us she thought we’d probably like to come in here all by ourselves. But I think she just wanted to sneak a cigarette.” She bobbed her head, her tin-foil halo waving up and down. “She doesn’t think we know. But we all do. Even dad.”

  And with that the cowboy opened the door, and the panda and angel shuffled out, followed by the pirate, who said to his friend as he passed, “School girl? Lame.”

  “Yeah,” the cowboy agreed, “laaame.”

  Part Four: Gobble It Up Before Anyone Can Comment

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Well, ladies,” Margie said as she locked the door to the café, “let’s go solve this case.” She then headed down the hallway to the “V” with Barbie and me trailing after her. The three of us looked like the personification of a bad joke: “A nun, a school girl, and Wonder Woman walked into a bar . . .”

  The place was already crowded with people, most in costume, although Dinky, his brother, and a few other guys were in street clothes, sitting at a table in the back corner, shaking dice. A clown sat at the bar, his face hidden behind a white rubber mask, and a woman stood on the other side of the room, dressed as a clump of grapes. She wore a green leotard and tights, with purple balloons clustered around her torso. She was talking to a hairy gorilla. He was drinking through a long bendable straw. Guy and Jarod were there too, hitting on Lucy and Ethel. Laurel and Hardy didn’t seem to care. They were shooting pool.

  The bar was decorated in orange streamers with black balloons. And it was noisy. Lots of visiting and laughing, all punctuated by music. At present, “The Monster Mash” blared as Frankenstein and Dracula performed some kind of bump and grind on the small dance floor.

  The place was dimly lit, the neon beer signs on the wood-paneled walls and the light above the pool table providing the bulk of illumination. In spite of that, everyone noticed when Wonder Woman walked in. In fact, the gorilla jerked his head so fast his long straw got away from him and burst one of the grape lady’s balloons. Barbie was oblivious to it all. At least she said nothing as Margie snagged a table behind the clown and assigned us each a seat.

  We all ordered beers, and about the same time as they arrived, so did Janice, drink in hand, purse hanging from her shoulder. She was dressed as a cheerleader, an orange pullover sweater sporting the letter “H” on her chest, her name on one sleeve, and the year 1974 on the other. Her skirt was black, pleated, and short, while the undies she flashed were orange-and-white striped. The outfit was complete with black knee highs and black-and-white tennis shoes. Oh, yeah, she also carried orange and black pom-poms. They were currently tucked under her arm.

  “Janice,” Barbie hollered, “I can’t believe you can still fit in that thing.”

  Janice plopped down between Barbie and me, across from Margie. She placed her glass on the table, her pom-poms on her lap, and her shoulder bag on the back of her chair. “Why? Can’t you fit into yours?”

  Barbie chuckled. “The knee highs maybe.”

  “Huh? You’re almost ten years younger than me. Surely you haven’t gained that—”

  “Enough!” Barbie yelled.

  “I like wearing this outfit,” Janice nevertheless continued. “It brings back some good memories.”

  “Good memories?” Barbie wrinkled her brow. “You got kicked off the cheerleading squad for inappropriate behavior.”

  “Exactly.” Janice fluttered her gunked-up, spider-like eyelashes. “And that behavior has provided some very good memories.”

  Barbie snorted. “Yeah, well, from what I recall, your squad was pretty promiscuous.”

  “No, we weren’t.” Janice pretended to be offended. “And if you aren’t careful, I’ll tell Julie Lindegard you said that. She just came in. She’s right over there. The one dressed like a lunchroom lady.”

  Barbie scanned the room, caught Julie’s eyes, and waved. “Well, I didn’t mean Julie. She wasn’t like that.” She playfully tapped her finger against the side of her head. “Come to think of it, you were the only wanton hussy in that group.”

  “Yeah, well, what can I say?” Janice twisted away to hack up a lung.

  “She wrecked Hallock’s Homecoming that year too,” Barbie shouted at me, trying to be heard over all the coughing. “It’s still a mainstay of bar talk. So I suppose I should tell you the story.”

  Janice didn’t seem to care. While Barbie spoke, she checked the fallout of her coughing jag in the tiny mirror of her compact, retrieved from her big bag.

  “The royalty included two of the nicest girls you’d ever want to meet,” Barbie informed me, “as well as—”

  “Me!” Janice dropped the compact to the table and snatched her pom-poms from her lap, shaking them in the air.

  Barbie waved her hand dismissively at her while explaining for my benefit, “The coronation was outside, under the lights, at half-time of the football game. I remember it well because I was in fourth grade so Homecoming was a big deal to me and my friends. Oh, yeah, and because thanks to her”—she bent her thumb toward Janice—“it left an indelible impression on my psyche.” Janice tipped her drink toward Barbie, as if toasting what she had done.

  Ignoring her, Barbie continued. “Each queen candidate and her escort took to the field in a fancy Cadillac. Spectators filled the stands, and all the players on the team lined up along the fifty-yard line. The Cadillacs came to a stop, and the first door opened, allowing Deb and her escort to step onto the field. Next, Diane and her escort exited the second car. But when the door to the third car opened, Janice and her escort fell out backwards onto the ground. “It was quite a sight. Her escort had lost his pants, and Janice was missing pretty much everything but her Tiera.”

  Janice lifted a finger. “I had my panties on.”

  “Yeah,” Barbie groaned, “around your ankles.”

  Janice snickered, and Barbie continued. “The crowd was aghast, and the band fizzled, except for two guys in the trombone section who insisted on playing ‘The Stripper’ until the band director confiscated their instruments.

  “That wasn’t the end of it either,” Barbie added. “My mother refused to let me go to any more games until my sophomore year. And to this day, I get nauseated when I watch football. I’m always sick to my stomach by halftime of any Vikings’ game.”

  Margie flicked Barbie in the shoulder. “That might not have anythin’ to do with those bad memories. The Vikin’s aren’t that good. Lots of people get nauseous watchin’ them.”

  Barbie shrugged. “It also was the end of half-time coronations. Now they take place under the lights of the school cafeteria, with the principal and janitor overseeing everything.”

  Janice set her drink on the table. It was pinkish-orange. Probably a tequila sunrise. “That was real entertaining and all, Barbie. But I wanna hear about Buddy. I’m guessing you know all about what h
appened. So tell me, did he really kill Raleigh Cummings?” Barbie elbowed her, then motioned toward Margie, leading Janice to add, “Not that I believe for a minute he did it. I was just wondering because he got into that fight with him at the Caribou. And he’s a hot head. And . . . well . . . whether you want to admit it or not, Margie, your family does seem to be prone to violence, considering what happened a few months back and all.”

  Barbie grabbed Margie’s forearm just in case she got the urge to crawl over the table and pound Janice senseless. I think the nun habit would have slowed her down enough for Janice to make an escape. But better safe than sorry.

  “Buddy didn’t kill anyone,” Barbie proclaimed, her knuckles turning white. “And I’m sure the whole mess will get straightened out very soon.” She went on to add in a conspiratorial tone, “At any rate, I’d much rather get the scoop on what happened last Saturday night. I heard you and Raleigh Cummings were making out in the Eagles, practically right under Hunter’s nose. What gives?” Barbie was a smart lady. For more than one reason, it was a good idea for her to steer the conversation away from Margie’s family and toward the incident in the Eagles.

  Janice tapped her long red fingernails against her teeth. “Well, it’s sorta her fault.” She pointed a finger at Margie.

  “My fault?” Margie sank against the back of her chair, and Barbie slowly released her grip on her arm.

  “Yeah, because of all your talk about broadening your horizons, I decided to do the same. I told Hunter we needed to buy an RV, so we could travel the country. See some stuff. Learn a few things.” She fiddled with the “H” on her chest, and I soon found myself mulling over “H” words. Hallock, harlot, hussy, ho.

  “And?”

  “And to raise the money for the motorhome I picked out, I promised to stop playing bingo, and Hunter agreed to quit poker.”

  Barbie slammed her bottle on the table, foam spilling over the top. “I can’t believe you gave up bingo!”

  Janice wiggled around on her chair. “I didn’t exactly say I did. But that’s not the point. Hunter agreed to save his money, and he didn’t. I got so mad at him I couldn’t see straight.”

  “Oh, so that explains why you were kissing some other guy,” Barbie said, tongue in cheek. “You couldn’t see straight. And here I thought you were just being trampy.”

  Janice seemed oblivious to the remark. “I really wanted to hurt him. That’s why I did what I did with Raleigh right there in the Eagles. I wanted Hunter to feel bad. He knew how much I wanted to go and visit the Corn Palace in South Dakota, not to mention the Lennon Sisters in Branson and, of course, Graceland.”

  “So,” Margie said, “ya got even with him by doin’ the nasty with the guy who took his money.” It was weird to hear a nun—even a pretend nun—talk about “doin’ the nasty.”

  “I didn’t have sex with him . . . in the bar. Once we got into his pickup, though—”

  “Stop!” Barbie held her hands high in protest, “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  I raised an eye brow at her.

  “Okay, Emme, you’re right. Everyone’s got their limits.”

  Janice zig-zagged her finger in front of Barbie, underscoring her costume. “Yeah, right, like you’re Miss Goody Two Shoes.”

  “It’s Halloween, for Pete’s sake,” Barbie moaned. “Why can’t anyone understand that?”

  “So,” Margie said, dismissing both Barbie and Janice with a toss of her veil, “did Hunter tell ya anythin’ about that poker game?”

  “No, not really.” Janice stopped as if to reconsider. “Well, I guess he did say something about Raleigh cheating. But I was too mad at him to listen to any of the details.”

  “How about Raleigh? Did he talk to ya about the game?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  Margie shoved the sleeves of her habit up her arms and folded her hands, placing them on the table in front of her. “Like we said, we don’t believe Buddy killed the man.”

  Janice, in turn, crossed her hands over her heart like the ingénue in a bad melodrama. “But you think Hunter did?”

  “We don’t know what to think,” Barbie answered.

  “Well, Hunter couldn’t have done it. Not with his respiratory problems.”

  “Huh?”

  Janice sipped her drink. “Raleigh was killed in a fight of some kind, right? At least that’s what I heard. But Hunter has really bad lungs from smoking all these years, so he can’t fight.” She leaned in and whispered, “He can’t do much of anything, if you get my drift.” She put her fingers over her lips. “Oops, I shouldn’t of said that. Well, I guess that’s what he gets for making me so mad.”

  Barbie raised her brows. “I take it you’re still harboring ill will.”

  Janice took another sip, this time through her straw. “A little, I guess.” She paused. “Okay, the truth is I’ve barely spoken to him since last Saturday morning, when I found out. Can you believe it? Five thousand dollars? And he thinks he can just waltz right back into my house. No way. He can stay in that disgusting trailer of his for a while. Maybe then he’ll learn his lesson.”

  “Yeah,” Barbie said, “I’d say you’re still upset.”

  “I can’t help it. And on top of everything else, he now watches me like a hawk. It’s actually kind of scary. It’s gotten so I can hardly—”

  “Date other men,” Barbie finished for her.

  “Very funny.” Janice slapped Barbie on the shoulder. “I only spent two nights with Raleigh.” She thought about that. “Yeah, Saturday and Sunday. Then we broke up.” She leaned in. “Not to speak bad of the dead, but he was a jerk.”

  “In what way?” Barbie asked.

  “He played the field.” Janice nodded her head to emphasize the seriousness of the charge, while the rest of us sat there with our mouths hanging open. “When I got off work on Monday,” she said, “I drove to his house, hoping we might have a little fun before he went to work. But he wasn’t there, so I ran up to the Caribou to see if he was eating supper or whatnot. And sure enough he was there. Only he wasn’t eating supper. He was doing whatnot with some skank from Lake Bronson in the backseat of her car.” She sipped her drink. “Well, I gave him a piece of my mind. And you know what he did? He laughed! And called me an old hag! I got so mad I could of . . .” She stopped herself, her face turning red.

  “What a jerk,” she mumbled after taking another sip from her glass. “On Tuesday afternoon he actually had the nerve to come into the office and yell at me because his garbage bag got ripped open.” She laid her straw on the table. “Well, I told him it wasn’t my fault. And it certainly wasn’t the bag. Those bags are good. Anderson Sanitation only sells the best. I know that for a fact. So I told him that damn little mutt of his probably did it.”

  I cleared my throat. “Was his dog a small white male?”

  “Yeah,” Janice muttered. “Mean little shit. Always trying to bite my ankles.”

  Barbie laughed. “Janice, it’s hard to get too upset about Raleigh two-timing you, considering that’s exactly what you were doing to Hunter.”

  Janice shook her head. “It wasn’t the same thing at all. Hunter and I broke up Saturday morning, after I found out about the poker game.” She stopped. “Well, okay, maybe we didn’t officially break up. But we were definitely on a break. Still are.” She finished her drink. “Besides, it’s different for me.” She glanced around the room, then leaned in and whispered, “I have needs. And like I said, Hunter can’t . . . umm . . . perform.”

  Margie shook her head and chugged the rest of her beer, evidently attempting to drown those images. “Janice,” she said afterward, “did Raleigh ever say anything to you about the President.”

  “Why?” Janice scrounged around the bottom of her bag until she found a tube of lipstick and blindly applied it to her lips, coloring just a
bit outside the lines. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if her lipstick was the only issue with her appearance. Remember, she was wearing a forty-year-old cheerleading uniform. And the more she drank the more her beehive hairdo tipped to the side. After a while, we all were tilting our heads whenever we talked to her, like we were looking at the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

  “Come on, Janice,” Margie complained. “This is important, particularly since the President also lost money to Raleigh in that poker game.”

  “Do you think he killed him?” The idea seemed to intrigue her.

  “I don’t know.” Margie was losing her patience. She’d always found Janice amusing. But she seemed to have gotten her fill of her tonight.

  “Well, believe it or not,” Janice said, “he knew the President from someplace else.”

  With our heads cocked at the same angle, we all replied in unison, “Really?”

  “Yeah. In fact, he kept saying things like, ‘If you only knew what I know about that guy.’ But he wouldn’t explain himself.”

  “And you didn’t pursue it?”

  “Margie, dear, it wasn’t the main thing on my mind, if you catch my drift.” She wiggled her tadpole eyebrows, and for a second, I was afraid they might actually crawl right off her face. “At any rate, I hope the police take a close look at the guy. He’s kind of creepy. And I’d much rather have him be the murderer than Buddy.” She offered Margie a friendly smile.

  Then she put a hand on Barbie’s shoulder. “Hey, wanna go to the bathroom with me?”

  “What?”

  “I hafta tinkle, but you-know-who is watching me. And I don’t want him following me into the john.”

  “Where is he?”

  Janice bobbed her head to the right. “Over there at the bar.”

  Leaving discretion far behind, the three of us—the nun, Wonder Woman, and the pathetic-looking school girl—craned our necks and peered past the clown, another guy wearing hospital scrubs, and one dressed like a referee to find Hunter Carlson. He was a hockey goalie, in full gear minus the skates and helmet. He stared at Janice but still managed to visit with the hockey player seated alongside him.