Hot Dish Heaven: A Murder Mystery With Recipes Read online

  “Hey, Margie,” the same girl said, twirling on her heels when she reached the door, “don’t forget to charge these to Ma.” She saluted with her cone before using her butt to open the solid metal door, allowing a wave of heat to sneak into the room.

  “Do a lot of people charge food here?” I asked after the door slammed, shutting out the girls as well as the stifling air.

  “A few of the regulars do.” Margie returned the ice cream pails to an upright, stainless-steel freezer. “But their ma’s no regular, at least not in this part of the building. She spends most of her free time and darn near every dime she makes on pull tabs down the hall.” She motioned toward the hallway that apparently connected the café to the VFW.

  “I feel sorry for the girls. I like to treat ’em to ice cream or a meal once in a while, but since they won’t accept charity, I tell ’em I’ll charge their ma’s account. They don’t need to know she doesn’t have one.”

  Margie freshened up our coffee and fixed a plate of chocolate-frosted mint bars, placing it on the table between us. “Now,” she said, sliding back into the booth, “where were we then?”

  “Well, you told me your sister quit working here when she got married.” I snatched a bar. The scent of rich chocolate and cool mint made my mouth water. Still, I managed to ask, “How about your brother? Does he ever help you out?”

  Margie’s eyes turned sad. “My brother, Ole, died a few weeks back.”

  I recalled the article in The Enterprise about the “untimely death of Ole Johnson” and the sister who’d cooked the “pretty good” funeral luncheon. “I’m sorry. I knew and simply forgot.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. It’s just hard to believe he’s gone. Liver failure, don’t ya know.” Margie stared out the window until the rumbling of a passing train brought her back from wherever her thoughts had taken her.

  After the noise died down, she went on to explain, “Ole never worked here much anyways. And he quit altogether when he joined the army, right out of high school. But when he came back home, his wife, Lena, helped me out a lot.”

  My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. “Ole married a woman named Lena?”

  A smile once more brightened Margie’s face. “Lena wasn’t her real name. Everyone just called her that ’cause she was Ole’s better half. He met her down in Texas, when he was in the service. They got married, and after Pa died and Ole got discharged, they moved back here to take over the farm. Her name was Maria, but no one called her anything but Lena.” She bracketed one side of her mouth with her hand and whispered, “She was Mexican and Catholic, don’t ya know.”

  Several moments later, as if I needed to digest that information before she could proceed, Margie added, “We don’t have many different races up here, but we’re used to Mexicans. Before all this fancy equipment, Mexican migrant workers came up from Texas every year to help with harvest. But they seldom stayed on after the crops were in, and they never married locals. So when Ole came home with a Mexican wife who was Catholic to boot, lots of folks, includin’ my sister, Vivian, thought the marriage was doomed. But they were wrong. Ole and Lena were happy for many years. I often told them they were like a pair of old slippers. They just fit right.”

  Margie fingered the cards behind one of the wooden dividers in her recipe box, while I used the lull in the conversation to bite into another bar. I savored its rich taste and buttery texture. “These are incredible.”

  “Thanks,” Margie replied with just a hint of pride. “They won me a grand champion ribbon at the county fair some years back, so I reckon they’re not too bad.”

  I bit back a smile. My editor, a New York transplant, often contended that Minnesotans had a hard time accepting that they were the best at anything. According to him, you only had to look at the state’s major sports’ teams. He’d say, “If they’re about to win a title, they’ll choke. Second or third place is good enough for them. Hell, if you give a Minnesotan a gold medal, he’ll have the damn thing bronzed!” Margie Johnson, the maker of the best bars I’d ever tasted could only admit they weren’t “too bad.” She was a true Minnesotan.

  “Yah, Lena was somethin’.” Margie examined one recipe card after another. “Once she got settled out on the farm, she started waitin’ tables and workin’ in the kitchen here. Before long, she was a pretty fair cook. I taught her how to make lutefisk, even if I couldn’t get her to eat it.” She tilted her head. “But she liked lefse. Sometimes she’d use lefse instead of tortillas to make tacos. We’d call ’em Norwegian taco nights.”

  “I bet you’ve heard every Ole and Lena joke in the world.”

  “And some a hundred times.” A wistful expression overtook Margie’s face. “Followin’ Ole’s funeral, the ‘V’ was packed, the beer was flowin’, and every toast began with a Ole and Lena joke.” Her voice was weighted down with sadness.

  Out of respect, I wanted to offer her my undivided attention but couldn’t because of the battle waging in my head. It was over whether or not to eat a third bar. Convincing myself I needed to surrender to focus fully on my host, I plucked another from the plate. I was determined to eat this one more slowly, but didn’t, and wound up posing my next question amid bites. “Where’s Lena now?”

  Margie closed her eyes. “She died four years ago this past spring. The doctor said it was due to a broken heart. Did ya know that could really happen?”

  Smacking my lips, I shook my head.

  “Well, it can, and it did. Lena loved Ole so much she never got over him leavin’ her.”

  Again she stared out the window, her expression remote. “Uff-da, I miss her.”

  I was confused. “I thought you said Ole and Lena had a good marriage?”

  She refocused on me. “Yah, they did, for a long time.”

  “Then what went wrong? Why’d he leave her?”

  Margie heaved a heavy sigh. “Oh, about five years ago, ’round Ole’s fiftieth birthday, he started drinkin’ and actin’ wild. He began neglectin’ the farm, spendin’ most of his time down the hall in the ‘V’ with Samantha Berg, the day-time bartender.” She tore at the edge of her paper napkin. “Well, one thing led to another, and soon they were havin’ an affair. No one could believe it. Ole had always been faithful to Lena, and Samantha had always been … um … a tramp.”

  She dropped the napkin and pointed at me with her kitchen-scarred index finger. “Ole’s mistake was bein’ too nice to her. Most men ’round here only liked Samantha on her back in the bed of a pickup. But not Ole. He wasn’t that way. So when she finally got her chance, she was all over him like a bad case of poison ivy.” Margie raised her cup to her mouth only to set it back down again. “To make a long story short, he moved in with her and goaded Lena into a divorce.”

  Ole’s affair clearly upset Margie, causing me to wonder why she’d brought it up in the first place. But since she had, I was determined to pursue it. Gathering recipes and material for a short profile piece wouldn’t take long. I had time. And Ole’s affair was bound to be more interesting than Jell-O recipes or learning what it was about hot dish that excited Margie so.

  “What happened next? Did Ole and Samantha get married?”

  Margie selected another recipe card. “I guess they planned to. At least that’s what that floozy blabbed to anyone who’d listen. But it never happened.”

  “Oh, really? Why not?”

  “Well, first, Ole left her, and then Samantha Berg got herself murdered.”

  Handing me the card, she uttered in a voice absent any emotion, “This here’s the recipe for the bars ya seem to like so much. Ya better write it down.”

  Chapter 3

  Before I could inquire about Samantha Berg’s murder, two old-timers came in, and Margie excused herself to wait on them. Despite the August heat, both men wore long-sleeve shirts and bib-overalls. Each also sported a baseball cap, one advertising John Deere tractors, the other, chemical fertilizer.

  Sitting down at the counter, the chemical-fertilizer guy asked Margi
e if it was hot enough for her, while the other tipped his head in my direction. Ignoring the weather-related question, she told them who I was and what I was doing there. They seemed impressed.

  Margie served them carrot bars and coffee, all the while chatting about the upcoming beet harvest. Even though sugar beets, used to create the alternative to cane sugar, were sometimes grown in the southern part of the state, they were king of all crops in the Red River Valley. According to my research, they’d made wealthy people out of many of the Norwegian and Swedish farmers who called this sparsely populated area home.

  The two guys and Margie talked, but I paid little attention. I wanted the men to leave so Margie and I could return to murder. Or, at least, our discussion of it.

  I finished copying the mint-bar recipe about the same time Margie began regaling them with a story about an apparatus Ole had rigged up years before to “rotate the filler wheels on his beet lifter.”

  The men chuckled. “Oh, that Ole,” the guy with the John Deere cap said in a Scandinavian accent so strong it put Margie’s to shame, “he was a thinker.” Although it sounded more like, “he was a tinker.”

  He swiveled on his stool to face me. “Ya know, he also was the first guy in these parts to try modern organic farmin’, and—”

  His friend cut him off. “That there’s nothin’ to brag about.”

  John Deere twirled his seat back around. “For cryin’ out loud, now why would ya go and say somethin’ like that?”

  “‘Cause I don’t think much of organic farmin’, that’s why.”

  Without making any eye contact whatsoever, John Deere argued, “For your information, Ole got prit near ‘tirdy’ a bushel for his soybeans one year.”

  “Ya ain’t tellin’ me nothin’ I don’t already know. But he had to work a lot harder.”

  “There’s nothin’ wrong with hard work.”

  “He was always pullin’ weeds.”

  “So?”

  “So sprayin’ weeds is easier.”

  “Well, easier ain’t always better.” That last remark was spoken brusquely and was obviously meant to end any further debate.

  “Say, Margie,” John Deere then said, shifting both his focus and his tone, “I remembered that Ole and Lena joke I wanted to tell ya after Ole’s funeral there. Care to hear it now?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  A grin inched across his face. “No, not really.”

  She slouched against the stainless-steel prep table and crossed her legs at her ankles, “In that case, go ahead and get it over with.”

  John Deere shoved his cap back from his sunburnt face and scratched his pale forehead. “Well, ya see,” he began, looking quite pleased with himself, “like most Norwegians, Ole, a professional fisherman, was pretty dang frugal. But when his wife, Lena, passed away, he reckoned he better put an obituary in the paper. So after fishin’ one day, he went on down there to the newspaper office and told the editor to write that Lena had died. Well, the editor said, ‘For land sake, Ole, ya gotta say more than that. You were married to the woman for dang near fifty years, and she was your partner in the fishin’ business.’ Still, Ole kept quiet, so the editor told ’em, ‘Now, if it’s the money you’re worried about, Ole, don’t forget the first five words of any obituary are free.’ Of course, that got old, tightwad Ole tinkin’, and soon he said, ‘Well, in that case, write, “Lena died; walleye on sale.”’”

  John Deere’s friend belly-laughed, while Margie groaned, and I couldn’t help but smile. These guys weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, but I found them charming in a “Beverly Hillbillies” sort of way.

  “Heard that one before?” John Deere asked.

  “No, don’t think so.” Margie ambled back to our booth. She winked at me, picked up her recipe box, and returned to the prep table.

  “Now I better get cookin’,” she said to no one in particular before calling out, “Hey, Emerald, why don’t ya come on over here and keep me company. Or better yet, give me a hand. You can cook, can’t ya?”

  “Nothing you’d want to charge money for.”

  Margie snorted. “How on earth did ya get to be a food writer if ya can’t cook?”

  I slid from my booth and strolled to the kitchen, a pen and several blank note cards in hand. “My aunt has connections, and I’m a pretty good eater.”

  “Ya don’t look it.” Margie’s gaze traveled from my head to my toes. “You’re kind of skinny.”

  “High metabolism,” I muttered self-consciously.

  “Just like me.” John Deere rose from his stool and patted his Santa-like paunch. “I have a high metabolism too. I just don’t know where I put it.” His sidekick laughed some more as John Deere wiped crumbs from the bib of his overalls.

  When the laughter died, John Deere added in the direction of his friend, “Say, now, we better be goin’.” He shoved the last of his carrot bar into his mouth and washed it down with coffee.

  Returning his cup to the counter, he tossed a few dollars alongside it. “Tanks, Margie.” He then tipped the bill of his cap in my direction. “And Miss Malloy, it was a pleasure to meet ya.”

  He lumbered toward the door on the heels of his companion, Margie calling out after him. “Ya comin’ back later?”

  He answered across his shoulder, “That all depends. Ya servin’ Wild Rice Hot Dish?”

  Margie huffed, “Of course I am.” Her tone implied she could hardly believe he’d ask such a question.

  “Then, ya betcha, we’ll be back.”

  The two men stepped outside, though John Deere peeked right back in again, his red face backlit by the afternoon sun. “Eh, Margie, that there was a humdinger of a joke, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, get out of here!” she teasingly ordered, causing the sidekick to snicker as the door banged shut.

  With a shake of her head, Margie returned to her recipes. “Those two old coots stop in every afternoon. They went to high school with Ole. The three of them were best of friends.”

  “They seem nice enough.”

  “Oh, yah, and they’re as common as snow in January. You’d never guess that once upon a time, the guy with the John Deere cap was a big-time engineer at Boeing.”

  “Really? An engineer at Boeing?”

  “Yah, but when his pa got sick, he had to come home and take over the farm.”

  I must have been in shock about the whole engineering thing because all I could utter was, “Well, that’s too bad.”

  Margie handed me the recipe for carrot bars. “Oh, don’t go and feel too sorry for him. He may be the valley’s worst joke teller, but he’s one of its biggest farmers. He works more’n fifteen hundred acres of beets, and I don’t know how much wheat and soybeans. On top of that, he’s president of the beet growers’ association. The growers own the beet plants, which means they decide how many tons get processed each year. In other words, they regulate the price of sugar.” She shook her head. “Yep, like a lot of farmers up here, he’s worth millions.”

  I jerked my head so fast I almost broke my neck. “Millions?”

  Margie looked embarrassed. “Oh, yah, but I suppose I shouldn’t of said that. It wasn’t my place.”

  Chapter 4

  I plopped down on the stool next to the prep table and took stock of everything Margie had shared with me. Her sister, Vivian, was married to a one-arm man named Vern, and together they had a daughter known as Little Val. Her recently deceased brother, Ole, was married to an Hispanic woman named Lena, who died of a broken heart after he dumped her for a tramp who wound up murdered. And the goofy-sounding farmer who frequented the café was really a brainy millionaire. “Hmm.” I could hardly wait to meet the fire eater and the bearded lady. But in the meantime, I’d have to settle for watching Margie chop onions with the speed and accuracy of the guy who did the Ginsu commercials.

  Awestruck, I asked without thinking, “What are you making?”

  She smiled, as if I were oddly amusing. “Hot dish. What else? I’ve g
ot the ground beef and turkey brownin’ and the noodles and rice boilin’. I made the buns and bars yesterday and the salads this mornin’.”

  Margie had informed me on the phone that she was co-hosting a fund-raiser with the VFW on the night of my visit. It was to benefit a local woman who had breast cancer. The woman needed help paying her bills because her treatment made her too sick to work.

  According to Margie, medical fund-raisers were fairly common in the valley. “If ya ask me,” she’d said, “the cancer’s from all the chemicals sprayed on the fields. But don’t quote me on that, or I’ll get tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.”

  With a dangerous-looking knife, Margie sliced and diced onions right next to me, my eyes watering as my thoughts returned to Samantha Berg. I assured myself that as a reporter, it was only natural to be interested in her. Only natural to ask more questions.

  “Margie,” I said, wiping away my tears, “tell me more about Samantha Berg.”

  She set the knife down. “There’s not much to tell, and she sure wasn’t worth cryin’ over!” She chuckled at the remark.

  “Seriously, how was she killed?”

  As if doing a dance she’d done a million times before, Margie stepped from the prep table to the stove and on to the sink. There, she dumped a frying pan full of cooked ground turkey into a colander and rinsed it with water. “She disappeared three years ago this past March, exactly one year to the day from Lena’s death. It was the spring the Red River flooded so bad that folks got stranded on their roofs and had to be rescued by helicopter.” She squeezed her eyes closed in an apparent attempt to shut out the images. “Anyways, when the flood waters receded, Samantha’s body was found washed up on shore. She’d been stabbed in the heart … or in the place her heart would have been if she had one.”

  I shuddered. “That must have been a gruesome discovery.”