A Second Helping of Murder and Recipes: A Hot Dish Heaven Mystery (12 page)

“Ready for another?”

I nodded, and he lifted my empty bottle, once again beckoning Janice.

“She can take care of herself,” he assured me. “And most people around here know better than to put much stock in what comes out of Dinky’s mouth.”

Janice set my beer in front of me, and following Buddy’s example, I avoided saying anything until she’d moved on. “Margie seemed to take what he said pretty seriously.”

Buddy chuckled. “My Aunt Margie is almost as bad as Dinky and Buford when it comes to gossiping. Truth is she may have done some exaggerating of her own. She doesn’t usually let facts get in the way of a good story.”

I felt foolish. “What about Barbie?” I wanted to save face. “How do you explain her interest?”

“She runs the paper. The paper depends on news. And news, especially in a small town, is fueled by gossip. Hell, this whole area is fueled by gossip—gossip and the Farm Bill.”

“Come on, Buddy. Barbie has a responsibility to print facts.”

“And she does. But she’ll be the first to admit she shifts through a lot of gossip and hearsay to find a few kernels of truth.” He tipped his bottle back. “Did she actually say she believed Dinky’s story?”

“Well . . . umm . . . no. Not exactly.” I recalled Barbie’s skepticism regarding what Dinky had supposedly seen and heard at the city office. It didn’t take me long to conclude that Buddy didn’t need to know about any of that. “So . . . umm . . . now what?”

Chapter Seventeen

B
uddy glimpsed past me
, toward
the entrance to the bar. “Let’s do what we came here for.” He jostled my forearm with the back of his hand, prompting me to glimpse over my shoulder. “See that guy over there?” he asked. “The one with the camouflage hat and jacket?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s Hunter Carlson.”

“What? That little man is the ‘friend’ who gave you the black eye?”

Buddy scowled. “He’s not that small.”

“Yes, he is. I think I could take him.”

“No, you couldn’t.”

“Well, if I couldn’t beat him up, I’m pretty sure we could share clothes. He can’t be any more than a size six, petite.”

Buddy eased off his stool. “Small guys can still be strong.”

“If you say so.”

I slid off my stool and paraded after him, attempting to fix my focus on Hunter. It took some doing. I was a bit tipsy. Granted, I’d only consumed a couple beers, but that was about half again as much as I should have had. Yep, I was a poor drinker by any measure and a downright disgrace by Irish standards.

I swallowed a hiccup and whispered to Buddy, “Hey, would your little friend get mad if I told him that, even though he’s wearing camouflage, I can still see him?” I hiccupped again, this time out loud.

Buddy glanced over his shoulder, annoyance and amusement fighting for top billing on his face. “Just keep your mouth shut unless I ask for your help, all right?”

Yeah, like that was going to happen. Nonetheless I pantomimed locking my lips and throwing away the key. But two seconds later, I murmured, “Where’s his girlfriend? I want to meet her.”

Buddy once more spoke to me across his shoulder, “You already have.”

“Huh?”

He circled and nodded at Janice. “That’s her behind the bar.”

“Janice?”

He didn’t answer but instead extended his hand to his little friend. “Hi, Hunter.”

“Hey,” Hunter muttered. “Cold enough for ya?” He followed with a bob of his head. “Sorry again about the eye.”

Buddy waved it off. “Like I said before, I deserved it. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Hunter shrugged.

“Have you eaten?” Buddy asked.

“Just finished.”

“Then let’s grab that booth and have a drink.”

Again Hunter shrugged, which must have been some kind of male sign language for “okay” because Buddy ushered me into the empty booth, scooting in next to me, while Hunter slid in along the other side.

“This is Emme.”

Hunter lifted his chin.

“I hear Dinky had a hell of a card game at the cabin last weekend.” Buddy was fishing for information, but it didn’t come across that way.

“On Friday night.” Hunter repeatedly glanced at the bar. “That Raleigh Cummings cleaned us out. But I was positive he was cheatin’. I just couldn’t figure out how.”

The waitress appeared, setting bottles of Bud Light in front of Buddy and me and a dark mixed drink next to Hunter. “So you got taken too?” Buddy slipped her a few bills.

“Yeah.” After tasting his drink, Hunter slouched against the bench back. “But I’ll never have to pay him.” He smirked.

Hmm
. During the ride to Hallock, I’d promised myself I wouldn’t make snap judgments about the people I met. I had a tendency to do that, and it ultimately interfered with my ability to reason objectively. Still, I decided right then and there I didn’t like Hunter Carlson.

I studied him closely, hoping to uncover enough wrong with him to justify my feelings. Right off the bat I checked off beady eyes, a hawkish nose, and the smell of cigarette smoke permeating the air all around him, as if emitting from his pores themselves. But that’s as far as I got before a waft of cold air put a shivering end to my assessment.

I craned my neck and saw that the bar’s front door was propped open, inviting a draft to wind its way down the hall, along the booths, and up my pant legs.

“Hey,” some guy yelled from a stool at the bar, evidently experiencing a chill of his own, “Shut the damn door! Were you born in a barn? For Pete’s sake, it’s cold in here!”

Those among the growing crowd in the entry ignored him, preferring instead to hoot and holler at what I could only assume were outrageously dressed adult trick-or-treaters stopping by the bar one night too early for Halloween. But, of course, I needed to find out for sure. So I stretched across our table, coming precariously close to falling into Hunter’s lap. “Oh, excuse me,” I mumbled, avoiding his eyes while clumsily settling back down by Buddy. “I was just trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening out there.”

Buddy and Hunter said nothing but followed my eyes, while a few other burly bar huggers took turns ordering that the “damn door” be closed. It was then that the door squeaked shut, and the crowd slowly parted like the Red Sea.

Some folks moved left while others went right, leaving a gap in the middle where two men stood all alone. Neither man spoke. Nor did anyone around them. Then, as if someone had shouted, “Ready, set, go,” the duo took off. And every man and woman in the Eagles went wild!

The two were capped in black snowmobile helmets with tinted face shields, rendering them Darth Vader look-alikes, at least from the neck up. They also wore thick nylon gloves and heavy black boots with metal buckles that tinkled as they darted around the pool table and across the dance floor turned banquet area. But other than that, they were bare. That’s right. Buck naked. Just a couple of streaking masses of dark curly hair and less-than-firm body parts.

“Fee Fon!” some woman shrieked as they ran past her.

Unsure whether to laugh or scream as they headed our way, I ended up gurgling some strange kind of noise. I also admittedly glanced at their mid-sections or perhaps a smidge lower. And regrettably Buddy followed my gaze.

Determined not to be embarrassed, I offhandedly said to him after the men had exited by way of the back door, “I don’t know what all the excitement was about, if you get my drift.”

He threw his head back and guffawed. “That’s not fair, Emerald.” There was a sexy pitch to his voice. “I’m sure you’ve heard of cold-induced shrinkage.”

“Of course.” I did my best to keep a straight face, and I hoped it wasn’t flushing red. “I’ve just never heard of men voluntarily flaunting it.”

Naturally everyone in the place had ideas regarding the identities of the masked men. Some even hinted that one of them was Buford, which prompted Buford to stand up next to his table toward the back of the dance floor and offer to prove that neither looked anything like him. He followed by unhooking his belt to a chorus of cheers and jeers before sitting back down.

A couple other names got bantered about too. But in the end most folks concluded that the men were probably from Canada. Canadians often visited the area and almost as often got blamed for any unseemly activity that occurred, notwithstanding the evidence.

With the mystery more or less solved to everyone’s satisfaction, most folks returned to what they had been doing before the floor show, which meant Buddy refocused on Hunter. “How’d you get away without paying Raleigh the night of the card game?”

Hunter played with his swizzle stick, bending and twisting it until it broke. “No one had enough money to pay him that night. Raleigh won right from the start. And he was such an ass about it, nobody but Biggie was willin’ to quit. The stakes just kept gettin’ higher and higher.”

I felt the pull of Buddy’s eyes and got the distinct impression he wanted my help in questioning his friend. But I wasn’t sure I could. In addition to being a tad inebriated, I was a bit disconcerted from the all-male review I’d just witnessed.

Buddy must have sensed I wasn’t going to come to his aid because he blew out a disgruntled sigh and moved on solo. “Why didn’t Raleigh come for his money right away the following day? On Saturday?”

Hunter was forced to yank his gaze away from the bar, where it had been trained on Janice. “I told him he’d hafta wait till I got paid for haulin’ beets. I wouldn’t have the full amount ’til then. And he wanted it all at once.” With that he went back to tracking his girlfriend’s every move, his eyes oddly filled with both sorrow and longing.

I realized then I may have misjudged the guy.

Big surprise there, Emme!

I now had the strong sense that Hunter adored his girlfriend but was disillusioned with her all the same. In other words, he probably wasn’t a jerk. A fool, yes. But not a jerk.

“So,” Buddy said, “Cummings was okay with waiting to get paid?”

Hunter tugged his droopy face away from Janice and offered up a shrug. It seemed to be his favorite expression. In this instance, however, he managed to supplement it with a few sentences. “He didn’t have much choice. But, yeah, he bitched about it the whole way back to his place. See, I rode with him. He didn’t think he’d find Dinky’s cabin on his own. Too bad for him he did.” He chuckled, then coughed.

“Don’t sound so happy when the sheriff talks to you,” Buddy warned. “He might decide you had a motive to kill him.”

Hunter sipped his drink. “I’d never kill anyone over money. What’s more, almost everyone else at the table, includin’ Dinky, did a lot worse than me.” He glanced around the room, then leaned forward. “Between you and me, Buddy, Dinky ended up owin’ Cummin’s about eight grand. And Wall-eye? Well, he and the President got taken for close to ten thousand each. Yeah, Wall-eye was a crazy man.” He looked at Janice but talked to us. “I didn’t even know he played poker. Then again, considerin’ how bad he was at it, maybe we shouldn’t call what he did ‘playin’ poker.’” He chuckled at that, ending with his own take on a smoker’s cough.

For his part, Buddy slouched against the back of his seat. He appeared stunned. “Like a deer in headlights,” as Margie might say. I had no idea what had caused the sudden change in him. But I did my best to help out by stepping in and asking what I presumed was the most logical follow-up question. “Who else played in that game?”

Hunter turned my way, while sucking down the rest of his drink, the ice cubes clinking against his empty glass. “When Wall-eye showed up, Biggie bowed out. So for most of the night it was me, Dinky, the President, Wall-eye, and that asshole Cummin’s.”

After he ticked the five names off on his fingers, he said to Buddy in a confidential tone, “We don’t usually talk about our games. But Buford just told me you were gettin’ hassled by the sheriff. So I figured you deserved to know how many other guys hated Cummin’s too. And some owed him big money.” He motioned toward Buddy’s black eye. “I figured I owed you that much.” He slapped the table. “Now I gotta go outside and have me a smoke.”

Once Hunter left, I spoke up. “At least we now know who all played poker last Friday night.”

Buddy remained silent. And distant. I couldn’t tell if he was even listening to me. I decided to pose a question he’d have to answer. “I can’t remember. Why is that one guy called the President?”

Staring straight ahead, he spoke in monotone. “He thinks his ancestor and namesake, John Hanson, should have been considered the first president since he was president under the Articles of Confederation.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot. He’s nuts.”

I was certain I’d get a chuckle out of him, but I didn’t. He merely polished off his beer, then hollered for another. “Want one?”

“No, I haven’t even started on this one.” I pointed to the full one in front of me. “Besides, I’ve had enough.”

He sniffed. “I haven’t.”

“Are you sure?”

He scowled.

Now some people might have considered a scowl proof I’d pushed too far. But I was not deterred. I continued to nag. “Buddy, shouldn’t you keep a clear head about you?”

“My head’s perfectly clear. Too clear, in fact.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek until it hurt before I gave up and asked, “What’s going on? What’s got you so upset?”

Buddy’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Emerald, weren’t you listening? Didn’t you hear what Hunter said? Wall-eye was playing poker on Friday night.”

“Yeah, I heard. And that means he lied to us. He didn’t go to his office to catch up on work when Little Val was at her parents’ house. He went to Dinky’s cabin, where he lost around $10,000 to Raleigh Cummings.”

Buddy handed a five-dollar bill to the waitress, told her to keep the change, and guzzled about half of his fresh beer. “It’s worse than that,” he mumbled when he finally came up for air.

“How so?”

Buddy twisted his torso until he was sitting sideways in the booth, his arm resting on the back of the bench. “Wally’s a compulsive gambler.” He spoke so quietly I could hardly hear him over the chatter around us. “He’s been in Gamblers Anonymous for years. Before he and Little Val got married, she warned him that if he ever gambled again on anything, she’d leave him.”

“Oh.” Images of Wally and Little Val and their baby boy flashed through my mind, the trio huddled together on the floor of the café, the afternoon sun bathing them in soft light. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, it’s not something we’re going to talk about. It’s private.” He paused. “Yeah, he’s really stuck on Little Val. I think he’d do just about anything to keep her from leaving him.”

“But . . .” I covered Buddy’s hand with my own. “He must have known he’d never keep that card game secret. Not with a bunch of other guys involved too.”

He once again angled himself forward and downed more beer. “You’re assuming he was thinking straight. But from what I understand, thinking isn’t his strong suit when he’s gambling.” He peeked at me. “No pun intended.”

I gently nudged his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here. We need to talk this over somewhere quiet.”

“I doubt there’s much left to talk over, Emerald. He lied about last Friday night. And he probably lied about where he was Wednesday afternoon too. Which could mean . . .”