November Hunt (14 page)

Twenty-four

Catherine had nothing more
to reveal, other than more details on what an amazing man Tom had been. I gathered that she missed him, first as a result of the divorce and now since she'd never see him again. I thanked her for her time and helped her find a nice blend of nonfiction and novels to keep her company the next few weeks.

It was hard to concentrate while I helped her. I was trying to recall how long Carla had been around, and how long Clive had been dating her. She'd been working at Bonnie & Clyde's since I'd moved to town last spring. Was she the Carla who had been raped forty years earlier, and had Clive killed Tom when he found out about his friend's involvement? There were far too many ifs. It made me crazy. I planned to return to Lyle's tonight to get more information, and stop at Bonnie & Clyde's on my way back to talk to Carla. Of course, that meant I also might run into Johnny, whose band was playing at the bar tonight.

The ticks on the clock ached by. I had book orders to look through and shelves to organize, but I couldn't focus. There was too much I needed to know, and I was trapped at work so I couldn't
find it out. I decided to churn out a recipe column instead of getting real work done.

While I Googled “Minnesota Christmas recipes,” I considered what my home economics teacher would think about where I'd ended up in life. Her name was Mrs. Davidson, and she was the spitting image of Julia Child, but shorter and more motherly. When I was in seventh grade, a budget crisis forced the administration to lay off the health teacher and formulate the brilliant idea of combining Mrs. Davidson's cooking class with sex ed. The kitchen was close to the bedroom, right? The new class was called “Family Sciences,” and from this fertile pairing sprang a generation of kids who would forever associate spinach quiche with the reproductive system. Mrs. Davidson would understand “Battle Lake Bites,” I decided.

Unsurprisingly, all my Minnesota recipe hits were for white food—lefse, lutefisk, potato klub. You'd think a snowbound people would make their food easier to locate were they to drop it while walking outdoors. Finding no tasty hits in the web, I went old school and browsed the Battle Lake section of the library. As far as I know, the Battle Lake library was the only one in the state to house a whole area dedicated to the history of the town, including yearbooks and original plats. I'd skimmed the yearbook section back in May when I'd needed to find some info on Kennie and Gary, both BLHS graduates, and I'd remembered seeing church cookbooks nearby, but for the most part, library patrons didn't check out these books so I didn't handle them much.

Sure enough, there were nearly two dozen spiral bound recipe books donated by various area churches over the years. I reached for the thickest, titled
Corn of Plenty
. It was published in the eight
ies, back before corn wasn't oversubsidized, transformed, and
injected into everything from orange juice to shoes. The book contained only corn-centric recipes and was divided into appetizers, salads, main dishes, and desserts. On the bottom of every page was a “Corn Fact.”
Did you ever wonder how they make that yummy jewel-like gravy in restaurants? The secret is cornstarch!

I flipped first to desserts, thinking they would be a challenge to work corn into. I was disappointed to discover that they all simply used high fructose corn syrup, before that was a dirty word. I flipped next to appetizers and felt immediately transported to the 1950s, where men wore hats and drank highballs and women curled their hair and donned full-skirted dresses to vacuum the
house. And from that vision, my first Minnesota Multicourse
column was born.

Still Tasty after all These Years

Turn up the Sinatra, fix yourself a scotch on the rocks, and slip into your party clothes, ladies and gentlemen. “Battle Lake Bites” is taking you back to a simpler time, when your meat was canned and your vegetables creamed. Welcome to the first installment in the Themed Menu series. This one is titled “Dragnet Dinner,” and it's perfect for a romantic night with your lover or a dinner party with your closest friends.

Appetizer

Company Ham Spread with Ritz Crackers

1 can deviled ham

½ can corn

2 tablespoons Thousand Island dressing (Wishbone brand is the best!)

2 tablespoons chopped pimento-stuffed green olives

¼ teaspoon Lipton's Onion Soup mix

1 sleeve Ritz crackers

Combine everything but the crackers. Chill for two hours (can be made a day ahead of time). Spoon topping onto crackers. Garnish each with an olive.

Salad

Chilled Ambrosia Salad

1 can Del Monte peach slices in heavy syrup,
undrained

1 can Del Monte sliced pears in heavy syrup,
undrained

1 can mandarin oranges, drained

¼ cup maraschino cherries

1 container Cool Whip

4 tablespoons sweetened shredded coconut

Mix all but coconut and Cool Whip in a bowl. Spoon into individual serving ramekins. Top each with two tablespoons of Cool Whip, sprinkle with coconut, and chill one hour before serving.

Main dish

Card Club Chicken Hotdish

1 package Rice-A-Roni Chicken Flavor

2 tablespoons corn oil margarine

2 cups cubed, cooked chicken

1 can Campbell's cream of chicken soup

1 package frozen chopped broccoli, cooked and drained

1 can corn

¼ cup slivered almonds

Cook Rice-A-Roni according to package instructions. Combine in large bowl with remaining ingredients except for almonds. Pour into a greased, microwave-safe casserole container. Microwave on high for seven minutes or until bubbling. Sprinkle with almonds and serve.

Side dish

Creamed Corn

2 cans Green Giant Creamed Corn

Open cans, pour into microwave-safe bowl, and microwave on high for two minutes before serving.

Dessert

Annette Funijello's Christmas Treat

1 cup water

1 teaspoon corn syrup

¼ cup Brach's cinnamon imperials

1 package strawberry-flavored gelatin

1 jar Musselman's applesauce

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Combine water, corn syrup, and candies in saucepan and heat until boiling. Stir as needed to dissolve candies. Place gelatin in a mixing bowl. Pour boiling water and candy mixture over gelatin. Stir until gelatin is dissolved. Cool slightly. Stir in applesauce and lemon juice. Pour into Christmas-themed mold. Chill until set.

Phew. I'd given it my best. If Battle Lake didn't have the most smashing Christmas ever, it wasn't my fault. I sent the column off to Ron just in time to close. My car felt a bit lonely without the fish house heater, which I'd removed before I left for work today, but I had a feeling I'd get used to it. I let the Toyota warm for a couple minutes while I scraped my windshield, and then hopped in to head to Parkers Prairie.

———

The traffic was heavy, for a small town, and it took me nearly 45 minutes to arrive at Lyle's. My heart was knocking some in my chest. I was jazzed at the possibility of finding answers, but I didn't imagine the social etiquette for asking a man about his criminal background was completely outlined, even in my
PI for Village Idiots
book. How would Miss Manners handle it?
Never wear a hat when indoors, turn off your cell phone when entering a restaurant, and make sure not to speak with your mouth full when inquiring about a person's past rape conviction.
It didn't make it any easier that the guy was single-handedly responsible for the fact that I could see out of every window in my car without the aid of a fish-house heater.

No point in worrying when I could be doing. I screwed up my courage, parked my car in the spot directly in front of the office door, and marched in. I was greeted by a wall of Jimi Hendrix wondering if I might be experienced.

“Hello?” No way was he going to hear me in the shop over the blaring music. I looked in vain for a button that might be connected to a light in the back. “Hello?”

I waited nearly two minutes before letting myself into the shop. The music was louder back here, and the oil-heavy air was laced with the distinctly sweet smell of marijuana. All the lights were on. An old Ford pickup was hoisted in the air, and some poor sedan had its engine cherry-picked right out of it and dangling over the open hood, ready for surgery. The third stall housed an SUV. I figured Lyle must be under there because I couldn't see him anywhere else. I marched over, the loud music making me tense. I walked around the vehicle and didn't see him. Getting down on all fours, I peeked underneath. Still no Lyle.

As I stood, a hand grabbed my shoulder. I squealed and turned. Lyle stood there in his dark blue jumper, his eyes bloodshot, smiling a crooked smile.

“You scared me!”

He shrugged.

“Care to turn the music down?” I yelled.

He shrugged again, but pointed toward the back of the shop. I found the stereo console and turned the music to low. My ear drums throbbed. “That'll make you go deaf.”

“Aren't you a little young to be my mother?” he asked.

“You're high.”

“You're low.” He smiled again, but it had a dark underline. “Something go wrong with your car?”

“I'm here to talk to you about what you said about Tom. You said you'd done time for him, and then he did time for you. Were you referring to the rape charges?”

He turned abruptly and strode toward a tool bench, where he began noisily pawing through the wrenches. “I never mentioned a rape,” he said over the noise

“No, you didn't. I found it in the records of the Battle Lake newspaper.”

He came up with a crescent wrench. “Sure going to a lot of trouble for a friend of the family.”

It was my turn to shrug.

He sewed his lips, then thought better of it. “If you read it in the paper, then you know all of it. I was arrested for rape. Sentenced to fifteen years, did ten.”

“That's all there is to it?”

“I suppose, if you look at my record.”

“Records don't always tell the truth. What would a fly on the wall have witnessed that night?”

He chuckled. The sound made the back of my neck cold. “A fly wouldn't'a wanted to be there, birdie. But I'll tell you the same thing I told the police because it doesn't make any difference anymore, does it? I was passing through Battle Lake a long time ago, doing carpentry work here and there. I got a gig helping out a bigshot business owner upgrading his summer place. That was my first mistake. His son was a member of this lily-white, country boy gang that called themselves the Four Musketeers. They knew I had weed and invited me to a barn party. I went, and that was my second mistake.”

He polished the wrench as he spoke, his voice hard. When the metal of it caught light, it shone like a diamond. “It was the four boys there, the Musketeers, and me. We got high. A girl showed up, and we started drinking. We drank too much. The barn was full of hay, and it was warm, and I was tired, so I fell asleep. I woke up to that pretty little thing crying, hay all in her hair and stuck in her yellow party dress, and I knew what I was up against. The Musketeers had all left, and the police were on their way. Who called them, your guess is as good as mine. I never touched that girl, I never did, but she was a local and protected her own. I was hung out to dry.”

“Tom Kicker was one of the Four Musketeers?”

Lyle leaned under the hood of a two-door sedan and continued as if he hadn't heard me. “I did my time, and when I got out, I opened up this here garage and didn't much look back. Though, if you're wondering, I believe Tom's patronage spoke for itself, in terms of his guilt. That man never could handle guilt well.”

I digested that information. “Who were the other three?”

Outside a car door slammed. Lyle released the hood on the car he was working on and turned on me. “I've talked enough.”

“I could find out who they were. I can go back to the newspaper archives.”

He laughed, a sound as cold as a December whistle. “You won't
find out who they were. Not in the newspaper, anyhow. Every town
protects its privileged sons.”

He was moving uncomfortably close to me, the glittering wrench
still in his hand.

“Why'd you come back here after you got out?”

“I called in favors to get this business going,” he said darkly. “And I might have an ironic streak. If I don't get to forget that night, neither does anyone else.”

We both heard the door in the office open. “Hello?”

The voice was male, and it gave Lyle a jolt. He strode the last three feet to me and gave me a push. “You should leave through this side door.”

His unease was contagious. “Why?”

Instead of answering, he pushed me toward the door. I craned my neck but at this angle couldn't see who entered. Outside, I jogged back to the front of the business, where a black Jeep was parked next to my Toyota. I walked to the office entrance just in time to see the door to the garage slammed shut. I returned to the Jeep and peeked in the windows. A couple jazz CDs were spread out on the passenger seat. The inside was otherwise clean. I slid into my Toyota and drove to Bonnie & Clyde's to ask Carla if she was the girl in the yellow dress.

Twenty-five

The ugliness of what
I was dealing with was undeniable. In the 1960s, a girl had been raped. According to Lyle, the Four Musketeers were responsible for the attack, and Tom had been one of those Musketeers. They had framed Lyle. That corroborated Julius' suggestion that a scandal in Tom's past had threatened to take down more than one “good” boy. Either Julius was mistaken in his assessment of the men or I was misjudging Lyle as a rough but basically decent person. He truly believed he'd been done wrong. It might not have happened exactly like he remembered, but his conviction convinced me that the newspaper didn't have it right, either.

Fast forward to today. Tom is murdered at the hands of his friend Clive, who is currently dating a woman who may have been the rape victim. Had Carla let slip the story of her past, and Clive avenged her? That seemed far-fetched, but I didn't have anything else to go on until I figured out if Carla was the rape victim, and who the other three Musketeers were.

It was not yet 8:00 p.m., and Bonnie & Clyde's was sparsely populated. Ruby was behind the counter, smoking and watching the tiny color television. Carla was dispensing golden mugs of beer to a group of four drinking near one of the two pool tables. They were young, early twenties tops, and were likely here for the two-band lineup. Johnny was nowhere in sight. I sidled to the bar.

“Hi, Ruby.”

She didn't look away from the TV. The bar was hers. She'd inherited it from her late husband, and she was a character. She wore jeans with 1970s patches and had the appearance and mien of Flo from Mel's Diner. “You still not drinking?” she asked me.

“I drink water.”

“Not in Clitherall you don't.” She was right. There was a sign on the bathroom taps informing clients that the water was not potable, and the bar purchased their ice from Koep's gas station up the road. I'd heard it had to do with all the pesticides from the potato farms circling the town.

“True enough. Could I have a Diet Coke?”

She hung the cigarette from the corner of her mouth, grabbed a glass and a scoop of ice, and filled it. I slid her two dollars and looked away. She had this neat trick where she'd take your money and leave you change without you noticing. I preferred not to watch. I didn't want to discover her secret. I turned back, and the money was still there.

“This one's on me. You're covering the bands tonight?”

I thought about it. “I could try. It's up to Ron if he wants to run the story. Who's the opening band?”

“Iron Steel,” said a hot voice in my ear.

I grimaced and pulled away. “Hi, Brad. I didn't see you here.” Brad had been the boyfriend I'd left behind in Minneapolis, the one who looked like a blonde Jim Morrison, conversed like a kindergartner, and screwed like a mime. Unfortunately, the same vortex that had relocated me to Battle Lake had also caught him in its trap. We crossed each other's paths on occasion, but otherwise, I avoided him. I'd made peace with his cheating ways, but there's something about running into an ex that reminds you of every bad decision you've ever made.

He ran his fingers through his feathered hair. “I was tuning my bass. You here to check out my new band?”

“What happened to Not with My Horse?”

“We broke up. Creative differences.”

“Uh hunh. Did they get tired of the techno polka fusion?”

“Doesn't matter.” He pitched his voice so he sounded like a big-hair '80s radio dee jay. “I am now Iron Steel. Twice the metal.”

“Where'd you find the new band?”

He looked around at his feet, the ceiling, the wall. He'd never been a good liar. Even when he'd cheated on me. “You know. Around.”

“It's the same band, isn't it? Just a different name.”

He appeared chagrined, then must have decided the expression was too much work. “Yeah. But we've reinvented ourselves. Totally different.”

“Can't wait. If you'll excuse me.” Carla was back at the bar and had lit a cigarette. I peeled myself away from Brad and sat next to her, and he returned to the stage to finish setting up his instrument. “Hi.”

She glanced at me, looking bored. Her dishwater blonde hair was pulled back in a low ponytail. She'd made time for eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick, but they only served to accent her washed-out color. In general, she looked like life had rode her hard and put her away wet. “You know the band?”

“No,” I lied. “Remember me? I was at the library the other night. When Clive came in and wrote the check.”

“I remember you.” She took a deep drag off her cigarette.

“I cashed Clive's check. It didn't bounce.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Clive is a man of surprises.”

“How long have you two been dating?”

“A couple months, maybe. It's not serious.”

In the background, Iron Steel began to tune up. It sounded like scissors being sharpened. “The dating pool is pretty shallow here. But you probably know that better than me. You're from Battle Lake, right?”

“I lived here for awhile, went away for awhile, been back for a while.” She looked around me at a group of twenty-something women who had just entered the bar, laughing loudly and made up for a night of fun.

“Yeah, I've only been in Battle Lake since last spring. I'm house-
sitting for a friend. I'm actually neighbors with Clive.”

“Excuse me.” She stabbed her cigarette into the ashtray. As she walked off to take drink orders from the new arrivals, I noticed she was wearing elastic-waisted blue jeans, their waistband almost invisible under a baggy t-shirt. Despite the aura of exhaustion she emanated, I could tell she had a naturally trim figure under her shabby clothes. Maybe they were all she could afford. Her newest customers had seated themselves in the only large table in the room, off to the immediate right of the stage. I predicted they'd be asking for sweet and pretty drinks and settling for Malibu rum and diet colas.

Once she served them, Carla returned to her pack of cigarettes.

“Gonna be a busy night,” I offered.

“Looks like.”

“Do you have any kids?”

Her eyes raced to my face and seemed to look at me full on for the first time. The moment was tense, and then she laughed. “None worth keeping.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don't want to talk about it. Why are you asking so many questions?”

“Making small talk.” I nodded toward the stage, where Iron Steel was preparing to start. “I have a friend coming on after these guys, so I've got time to kill.”

She seemed to take this at face value. “You got any kids?”

“Nope.” I swiveled on my stool to knock on bar wood. “Can I ask you something? Out of curiosity?”

She tapped a long ash off her cigarette. “You want to know where Clive got the money, right? I don't blame you. I would too. Anyhow, it's no secret. He got it from the Fergus attorney. The same one who was at the library event.”

I mentally ran through the guest list. I didn't know over half the people who were at the gathering, or what they did for a living. “What's the attorney's name?”

“You'd have to ask Clive.” Another large group pushed through the door, this one co-ed, and Carla smashed out her second but certainly not her last half-smoked cigarette of the night.

I stayed long enough to hear Iron Steel's entire set, and I had to reluctantly admit that they weren't half bad. They were closer to 40 percent crap, which was an evolution for Brad. I wasn't staying to hear him, though. I was here for Johnny. He'd suffered through my gastrointestinal distress and still requested that I come and see him play tonight. I'd been running all day, starting with taking Peggy to church this morning—shoot, I'd only had enough time over lunch to run home and let the animals out and grab a sandwich. I knew I looked faded and stressed, but he'd seen me worse.

That's what I told myself until I saw him stride through the rear door of the bar, equipment in hand, oblivious to the appreciative stares he drew from the female crowd. Most of them were here to see Johnny, and I couldn't blame them. His thick hair curled around his ears, and the rosy cold on his cheeks turned his eyes so blue they glowed. It was his hands that made me weak in the knees, though, those strong-fingered, lean, lovemaking hands. I quickly swiveled in my seat and dug frantically in my purse for lipgloss. I had the wand to my lips and was pinching my cheeks to add color when I felt his hand on my shoulder. He slid his other hand on my cheek, chilled from the outdoors, and leaned in to whisper over the clamor of Iron Steel.

“You made it.” His warm breath seemed to travel over my entire body.

I nodded, but he was too close to my ear to see it. He kissed the spot directly below my earlobe, and I quivered. He pulled back with a smile, nodded toward his equipment, and went off to set up. I was aware that I was now being stared at, an impotent lipgloss wand in my hands. I shoved it back into the container and ordered a refill on my beverage.

By the time his band was on stage, Bonnie & Clyde's was packed. I held my seat at the bar and admired from a distance as Johnny sang everything from smoky love songs to pulsing rock. On break, he took me by the hand and led me to the basement, smiling at the people who wanted to talk to him but not stopping until he had me at the bottom of the stairs, where he closed the door, pushed me gently against it, and kissed me like he meant it. I was able to stand seven full minutes of passionate petting before my hand went to his zipper. He pulled it away and moved it to his hard chest.

“Remember the rules,” he whispered huskily.

“I can't even remember my own name.”

He chuckled, a throaty sound that never failed to make me smile. He played his finger across my lips. “I have to go back upstairs. You're probably not going to stay through the whole second set, are you?”

I heard the hope in his voice, but he was a realist. He knew once I cooled off, I'd sense the danger of going home with him and flee. Still, I found myself wanting to share with him all that I was discovering, but it felt too intimate, and I didn't want him worrying about me. I walked him back upstairs, emotions and questions swimming between us, and slipped out the front door a few songs into the set.