A Second Helping of Murder and Recipes: A Hot Dish Heaven Mystery by Jeanne Cooney

probably be at home right now.”
    She filled a coffee cup and handed it to Barbie. “That oughtta warm ya up.” She then glanced my way, the implicit question in her eyes.
    “Yes, please,” I answered.
    “Do you mean to tell me you didn’t find out anything about Raleigh Cummings?” Barbie sounded surprised if not altogether disappointed.
    “I didn’t say that.” Margie gave me a mug of coffee, and I wrapped my hands around it, hoping to thaw them out. “I asked around,” she said, “and some people were more than happy to talk about him. But since he wasn’t from around here and only drove on the night shift, the day folks didn’t know much.”
    She added to me by way of explanation, “Beet harvest takes ’round-the-clock work. Ya don’t stop for nothin’ other than too much heat, too much cold, or too much rain. And since ya always encounter some of that, ya gotta move fast when the conditions are right. So all the beet farmers run two shifts during harvest—a day shift that works from noon to midnight and a night shift that goes from midnight to noon.”
    She leaned back against the service counter and crossed her feet at her ankles. “I talked to Dinky Donaldson.” She honed in on Barbie, who didn’t appear all that impressed by her source of information. “Did ya know he and his brother sold their beet stock last winter?” She dipped her chin. “Well, they did. So as it turns out, they were able to drive beet truck for Buford and Buddy this past week.” She glanced at me. “See, flu season started early this year. Workers were droppin’ like flies, leavin’ the farmers scramblin’ to find fill-in help.” She sidled up to the wall and rapped her knuckles against the wainscoting. “Knock on wood I don’t get sick. That flu bug sounds awful.”
    Barbie slurped her steaming coffee. “It makes sense they’d help out, doesn’t it? You’re all related, right?”
    Margie returned to her stance against the back counter. “Yeah,” she said slowly, “if I remember right, Arlene Donaldson—that’d be their grandpa’s sister—married Gus Johnson, my grandpa’s uncle on his father’s side.” She squished up the left side of her face. “Or was he my grandpa’s first cousin? Hmm, I always get that mixed up.” She snapped her fingers. “No, I got it now. He was my grandpa’s nephew. That’s right. He was the oldest son of his youngest brother. Yeah, I remember. He married—”
    “Stop!” Barbie pounded her head against the counter. “I should have known better than to say anything. With you even the most innocent question about family turns into a genealogy lesson.”
    Margie shrugged. “I like knowin’ how everybody around here’s connected. That’s all.”
    She looked to me, perhaps for agreement, but I saw it as an opportunity to change the subject. Having no family to speak of, I’d never found genealogy particularly interesting. “Margie, what did you mean when you said the Donaldson brothers sold their beet stock?”
    With a swing of her ponytail, Margie shifted from the subject of ancestors back to farming. “Not just anyone can grow sugar beets, ya know. Ya need stock. And if ya don’t have any, ya hafta buy or rent some from someone else. And if ya can’t find any, well then, you’re out of luck. No beets for you.” She stopped, ostensibly to give me a chance to absorb everything she’d said. “That’s how the growers regulate the amount of sugar produced and, ultimately, the price.” She stopped again. “Well, that and they own the processing plants.” She chuckled, and a renegade gray-blonde hair came to rest on the lashes of her right eye. It flitted when she blinked.
    “Yah,” she continued, “even though sugar beets are still a darn good crop, financially speakin’, some growers are sellin’ off their stock.” More blinking. More flitting. “They’re afraid what Congress might do in the way of decreasin’ subsidies and all. So they wanna get