Hot Dish Heaven: A Murder Mystery With Recipes (2 page)

I jumped and spilled my coffee.

Looking pleased with my reaction, Margie wiped up my mess with the hand towel she tugged from her shoulder. “Yah, that’s what happened all right. Vern’s arm got pulled into the knotter, and he couldn’t yank it loose. It got real twisted up. He bled somethin’ fierce and knew he’d die if he didn’t get free soon, so by God, he did what he had to do.” She gulped air. “That’s right. He sawed his arm off with his pocket knife. He hacked right through it, bone and all. For sure it took some doin’, but he did it.”

My stomach churned as I shook my head in disbelief.

“Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. Like I said, your paper even ran the story.”

Margie now seemed totally at ease and oblivious to the tape recorder. “Anyways, he pried his arm out and carried it on back to the house—about a mile away. There, Vivian put it in the Styrofoam cooler Vern used to store fish bait. Now I don’t know if any bait was in there at the time, but that’s where she put it. Then she drove him and the cooler to the hospital in Hallock, just north of here. The doctor on call took one look at Vern and another inside the cooler and loaded both in the ambulance and rushed them to Fargo.

“By the time they arrived, Vern was in mighty rough shape. So was his arm. Surgery lasted for hours, and for a long time afterwards, we didn’t know if he’d make it.” She paused to allow me to absorb the gravity of the situation. “In the end, the doctors saved him but not his arm.”

Margie sipped some coffee. “Well, wouldn’t ya know, Vern and Vivian’s daughter, Little Val, was to get married the followin’ spring. And believe it or not, Vivian was worried Vern wouldn’t be able to do the father-daughter dance at the weddin’ reception, havin’ only one arm and all.”

She pursed her thin lips so tightly they virtually disappeared. “Isn’t that terrible? Her husband barely survived an awful accident, yet Vivian’s main concern was what folks might say if he couldn’t waltz. But that’s my sister.” Again she paused. “As it turned out, she had nothin’ to worry about. It could of been a whole lot worse.” She gave the table a tap of her finger. “The fact is Vern danced pretty darn well, even if Little Val had to do most of the leadin’.”

Being a reporter, I should have had a follow-up question ready, but I didn’t. What more did I truly want to know about Vern or his severed arm? Nothing, I decided. Absolutely nothing.

Margie handed me a grease-stained card. “This here’s my most popular dish. I now call it One-Arm Hot Dish because it’s so easy to make, even Vern can do it.” Her pale blue eyes danced. “Vivian had conniptions when she heard I’d changed the name on the menu, but Vern said he liked bein’ honored with a hot dish. Yah, that Vern is somethin’.”

While only half-way listening, I printed the recipe on a blank index card. Yes, that’s right, an index card. I’d left my laptop at home, unsure it would work way up here without a lot of fuss. I wasn’t a computer wiz, and fussing with it wasn’t something I liked to do or did very well. Instead, I planned to tape my interview, jot down the recipes along with my notes, and type up everything back at the office in Minneapolis. Probably odd-sounding coming from me, someone under thirty and raised during the technology revolution, but as my dad often said, I was an “old soul.”

“Followin’ his accident,” Margie said, “Vern still insisted on helpin’ out on the farm, though his daughter, Little Val, had to take over most of the operation. Now we tease that when she needs more than ‘one extra hand,’ she has to ask her husband or cousins to pitch in.” She snorted a chuckle.

Without a doubt, Margie enjoyed making one-arm jokes at Vern’s expense, and while she was politically incorrect for doing so, I liked the sound of her laugh when she did. It was genuine. Then again, everything about Margie Johnson seemed genuine, from the Scandinavian accent that led her to drop most every “g,” to her tee-shirt, which read, “Let me spend eternity in Hot Dish Heaven
.”

“Anyways, when Vern’s not helpin’ out on the farm there, he’s workin’ on his duck decoys. He carves and paints some of the finest you’ll ever see. Sure, people don’t use the hand-carved ones for huntin’ anymore, but they still like ’em for decoratin’.” She snuck a drink of coffee.

“After the accident, folks assumed he’d never carve again, but he proved ’em wrong. Of course, with only one arm, he now has to use clamps or his knees to hold his carvin’ wood. I joke that he better be careful with his knife when that wood’s between his legs, or by golly, he’ll be missin’ more than an arm.”

Another chuckle accompanied by another snort, and this time, I couldn’t help but laugh too, although I tried to downplay it by dropping my head and studying the recipe I’d just copied. It wasn’t for anything special. Just your run-of-the-mill hot dish. But I soon learned that in Kennedy, nothing was “run of the mill.”

My visit with Margie was interrupted by two girls with blonde bobs, freckled faces, and sunburnt noses. They wore bright, one-piece swimsuits, their striped beach towels draped over their shoulders. They came in for waffle cones, and Margie made them with hard ice cream from one-gallon buckets.

Handing a chocolate cone to the taller girl and a strawberry one to the shorter, she asked about swimming lessons, informing me they were offered three days a week at the outdoor pool in Hallock. A bus took the kids there and back again.

The girl with the chocolate cone bragged that she was the best swimmer in her group, while the other complained that the breast stroke was too hard and hurt her neck. The chocolate-cone girl then explained that the two of them would be weeding the community garden much of the afternoon.

Margie frowned. “I know it’s your job, and ya have to do it, but take lots of water breaks,” she warned. “It’s so hot out there I swear I just saw my thermometer run into the shade.”

“Don’t worry,” the chocolate-cone girl replied with a giggle, “the hose is on.” And with that, the duo padded barefoot toward the exit, licking their ice cream along the way.

“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.”