Hot Dish Heaven: A Murder Mystery With Recipes (25 page)

“No,” I replied too quickly, leading to an immediate attempt at damage control. “I mean, I’m fine. No need to hurry.”

While I wasn’t keen on sharing anything more about myself, I didn’t want our time together to end either. Once we reached the bar, the deputy would probably leave. Then what? Alone again, I’d most likely examine my conscience some more, which wouldn’t be good. What if I uncovered other terrible truths? What if I ended up hating myself? I spent way too much time alone to despise my own company.

We strolled on, Randy whistling to the music that carried faintly from the bar. And me? Well, I pretended that every time the deputy’s arm brushed against mine, sexual pheromones formed in the air around us. Silly, I know, but it kept me from doing any serious thinking, and that was the whole point, right? Besides, it was far more titillating than thinking that the buzzing around my head was nothing more than a bunch of gnats.

“Sooo,” the deputy said, taking a break from whistling “Ring of Fire,” “you’re really not going to write about Samantha Berg?”

“Nope. I’m only interested in recipes and a profile piece on Margie. Not exactly exciting, but …”

He reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze, the warmth of his touch radiating up my arm, across my chest, and to all points south. “I’m glad,” he said. “I didn’t want to make trouble for you.” I cocked my head, and he replied to the gesture with a chuckle before adding, “What can I say? I’m protective of these people.”

I stopped. “Does that include Buddy Johnson?”

I have no idea where that question came from. As I may have mentioned, my mind regularly had trouble keeping up with my mouth. And my mouth had terrible timing, as evidenced by Randy Ryden abruptly dropping my hand.

“Why would you ask about him?”

“Well, when I told you I’d been dancing with him, it was plain to see you weren’t happy about it. So what’s the story there?”

The deputy walked ahead. “I just don’t like him. That’s all.”

I raced to catch up. “Why not?”

He frowned. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

I opened my mouth but closed it right away again. A sliver of an idea was coming to me, and I wanted to make it whole before I spoke. Since it had come out of nowhere, I knew I needed to give it careful consideration. See? I really was trying to be more thoughtful.

“Hey,” I said after some time, hoping his continued silence wasn’t a sign that he was angry with me but knowing I’d ask my questions just the same. “Your negative feelings about Buddy don’t have anything to do with Samantha Berg, do they?”

The deputy practically tripped over his feet. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“I’m not impossible.” I fluttered my eyelashes in a playful attempt at easing the tension I felt building between us. “I’m tenacious. It’s the Irish in me.”

He snorted. “Don’t blame an entire nationality for the way you are. It’s not fair to the rest of the Irish.”

“Very funny.” Again, not much of a comeback, but I couldn’t help it. He was getting crabby, and I was getting tired. Or maybe I was merely distracted by the pheromones or gnats or whatever they were. At any rate, our conversation stalled, leaving the void to be filled by the buzzing around my head and the murmuring of the people huddled together on the next block, in front of the bar.

“Why does it matter to you what I think of Buddy Johnson? You aren’t writing about the case or the people around here anyway. You’re only after recipes, remember?” His tone was less than sweet.

“I can still be curious. It’s my nature.”

He appeared ready to say something snarky in response but must have thought better of it because he kept his mouth shut for quite a while. “I just don’t trust him,” he uttered only when apparently able to speak without fear of insulting me.

“Why? Do you think he was involved in Samantha Berg’s disappearance and death?”

The deputy blew out an exasperated breath. “How’d you come up with an idea like that?”

I shrugged. “Good-looking guy. Slutty woman. Damaged family. Seemed possible.’”

He sighed. “He and his brother weren’t even in town when Samantha went missing. They were in St. Paul at the State High School Hockey Tournament. Hallock wasn’t in the tournament, but players from here go down every year to watch the action.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“So I sense there’s more to the story.”

He gently placed his hand against my back. “Come on, let’s forget about all this and get some coffee at the café.” He playfully wiggled his eyebrows, clearly working to lighten the mood. Although I suspected he was working another angle too. “And if we’re lucky, there might be some Cookie Salad left.”

“Cookie Salad?”

The corner of his mouth curled upward. “Now don’t go all hoity-toity on me. Cookie Salad is goldarn tasty.” He embraced a thick Scandinavian accent for those last few words.

“Believe me, I’m no food snob, Randy. Far from it. But I know two things for sure. One, real salads aren’t made with candy bars and cookies.”

He flashed me a look of disbelief. “They are if they’re any good.”

“And ‘B,’” I said, watching in anticipation of his response to what I was about to say, “I’m not letting you off the hook. You will tell me about the Johnson twins.”

His mouth fell open. Yep, he had been trying to sidetrack me. Of course it didn’t work. But not being one to gloat, I said nothing. And I even helped him out by closing his mouth with a flick of my finger under his chin.

The deputy’s radio crackled, and he mumbled a series of numbers into it before turning to me. “I guess I’ll have to take a rain check on that coffee.”

“Another accident?”

“No, I just need to get back to the office.”

We crossed the street, and when we got to the other side, I rested my hand on his forearm. “Before you go, I want the rest of the story.”

The deputy sighed again. Yep, that sighing stuff could easily start grating on me.

“Tell you what,” I continued, “since you’re in a hurry, I’ll even accept the abridged version.”

He dropped his head back. “There’s just not that much to it.” He glanced at me. And with one look in my eyes, he must have decided I needed more of a response than that. “Okay. Okay.” He stretched his neck this way and that in an apparent attempt to relieve some stress-induced stiffness. “No one at the tournament remembered seeing the twins the night Samantha disappeared. They saw them the day before and the following afternoon but not that night.”

“You mean they didn’t have an alibi?”

The deputy scratched his head. “Oh, they had an alibi all right. Father Daley vouched for them. He said they were with him the entire evening. At the game. And the hotel afterwards.”

“But you aren’t so sure?”

“Let’s just say I have a bad feeling about it.”

That gave me pause. “Randy, I really hope you aren’t pinning the success of your investigation on mere ‘feelings.’ Not that I’m telling you how to do your job. But I’ve done that a few times today—gone with my feelings instead of gathering all the facts—and it’s left me ‘feeling’ pretty foolish.”

He shrugged. “Well, sometimes that’s all I’ve got. And more often than not, my feelings are right on the mark.” He picked up his pace.

“Really?” I marched double time to keep up.

“Yeah. I guess I have good instincts. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

“Hmm.” Maybe I was right to wonder about Buddy Johnson. Maybe I was onto something without even knowing it. Deputy Ryden had been doing this investigating thing a lot longer than me, and if he thought …

“Well, now that you mention it,” I began, “I did get some negative vibes shortly after meeting Buddy.” I paused to catch my breath. The deputy walked really fast. “So what do you think? He and his brother left the hockey tournament, drove six hours to get back up here, kidnapped and killed Samantha Berg, dumped her body, and returned to the Cities?”

He slowed down and looked my way. In the pale moonlight, I saw his jaw muscles twitch. “When you say it like that, Emerald, it doesn’t sound all that plausible. Although it would explain a lot.” He pointed his finger at me. “For starters, together they could have subdued her. A lone person would have had a tough time. I may have mentioned that she was husky.”

“But if they came back to town just to kill her, the murder would have been premeditated, right? Do you really believe they could have done that? Wouldn’t someone have seen them?” Only when I was done did I realize how fast I’d asked those questions.

Randy held up three fingers, one after another. “Yes. Maybe. And not necessarily. Remember, it was the one-year anniversary of their mother’s death—a death they, like a lot of folks, blamed on Samantha. They might have gotten restless down at the tournament, considering the date and all, and headed home. Maybe they did some drinking along the way. Probably some other stuff too. And by the time they got back here, they were all jacked up. They confronted her, and things got out of hand. They killed her, dumped the body, and returned to the Cities.”

I finished his thought. “And once back there, they went to Father Daley and confessed their sins, and he offered absolution along with an alibi.”

“Something like that.”

The deputy motioned me toward his squad car, a brown Ford SUV. It was parked along the highway, in front of the bar. As we closed in, the group that had been loitering nearby dispersed, leaving behind the pungent smell of marijuana. He raised his eyes to the sky in an unmistakable sign of futility.

“You really believe a priest would do such a thing?” I asked the question after a brief examination of some basic beliefs.

Deputy Ryden knitted his brow. “You’ve never heard of members of the clergy acting improperly?”

He’d missed my point. “I meant would this particular priest do such a thing? It would make him an accessory to murder.”

The deputy held his hands out, palms up. “Father Daley loved Lena Johnson. I’m not saying inappropriately, but he loved her. And Samantha put an end to that relationship as well as his friendship with Ole. What’s more, he’s always been protective of Rosa and the twins. Given all that, I don’t think he would have had a hard time forgiving the twins for doing away with Samantha, especially if her death was an accident of some sort.”

I was uncomfortable with the notion that a priest would willingly break the law, not to mention one of the major Commandments. Sure, I was aware of abusive clergy, but I didn’t know any personally. I’d actually met Father Daley. He had even sung to me.

I shook my head in an effort to clear my mind. “I suppose that in addition to interrogating the twins, you examined their car?”

“Yep, and some of Samantha’s DNA was found inside.”

“Huh?”

He held up his hand. “Don’t read too much into that. Half the cars up here would test positive for her DNA.”

“Mmm.”

“Nope, there was no damning evidence against the twins. Just my hunch. And they had Father Daley as their alibi. So case closed as far as they were concerned.”

“Did they take a lie-detector test?” Now that I’d gotten interested in the investigation again, I wasn’t quite ready to let it drop. Not that I’d do anything with the information. I just found it fascinating. “Father Daley told me that Vern took one to prove his innocence.”

“Well, the twins never did. Of course they said they wanted to, but their lawyer advised against it. He argued that lie-detector tests weren’t reliable. He wouldn’t let Rosa submit to one either.”

“They lawyered up?”

He grinned as he leaned against the squad car, crossing his feet at his ankles, his arms over his chest. “Lawyered up?” His face was haloed by a streetlight. And like Margie, he appeared amused by me.

“I probably watch too many cop shows.”

The wind picked up, and I rubbed my arms briskly against the cool breeze. “Brrr.”

“I’d offer you my jacket. But I’ve got to go. It’s dirty anyhow.” He thumbed toward the back seat of his car. “I don’t know why, but I brought it into the café earlier. And when I grabbed it from the coatroom on my way out, someone accidently dumped a plate of glorified rice all over it.”

He stood up straight, and we gazed at each other, both apparently clueless as what to say or do next. I could have asked more about the case, but while staring into his eyes, it had lost all of its appeal again. Go figure.

So, instead, I squared my shoulders, tilted my head to the side, and attempted an expectant look to signal he could kiss me goodbye if he were so inclined. But I must have messed up because he merely scratched his stomach.

“All righty then,” I said, and at the same time, he said, “Well, then,” and together we chuckled before lapsing into another uncomfortable moment.

“You go first,” I urged after a while.

“Well, I just wanted to say again how much I enjoyed meeting you.”

“Me too.” That’s not right. “I mean I really enjoyed meeting you too.”

Another awkward moment while he frisked himself. And believe it or not, as nervous as I was, I found myself wishing for a turn at that. Yeah, I know, pitiful. Just keep in mind: A work in progress and in desperate need of a date.