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sure?”
    “I just know, that’s all. My brother wasn’t some kind of crazed killer.”
    “I didn’t say he was. But it’s possible he—”
    “If he’d killed her, don’t you think the FBI would of arrested him?”
    Unable to reign myself in, I sarcastically replied, “They didn’t arrest anybody, but that doesn’t make her any less dead.”
    Margie again mumbled something, but this time I didn’t catch much other than “effin’” this and “effin’” that. And when she was done “effin’,” she signaled an end to our conversation by twisting on the squeaky faucets and noisily rearranging the dirty pots and pans.
    Once she began scrubbing them, I volunteered to towel them dry, but she insisted they be left alone. Noting silently that the dishes weren’t all that needed to be left alone, I sat back down and chided myself for being too impatient.
    It’s my biggest character flaw. Not my only one, mind you, just my biggest. I’m too pushy. I move too fast. I’m afraid if I take my time, I’ll be left behind, all alone. That’s what my therapist says anyway.
    Yeah, my therapist. And before you get too judgmental, let me just say that I think most people would benefit from a little one-on-one counseling. But I digress.
    I shuffled through the recipe cards Margie had given me. In an attempt to ease my discomfort by otherwise occupying my mind, I picked a recipe I hadn’t yet copied and began doing just that. It was Lena’s Chili Hot Dish. Margie had mentioned it was Ole’s favorite.
    While jotting down the list of ingredients, I lectured myself on why I should stick to gathering Margie’s recipes and profile notes and avoid all further talk of murder. It wasn’t as if I’d ever write about the incident anyway, so why work so hard to uncover the details? Besides, if I continued to badger Margie, she might refuse to give me what I needed to complete my real assignment. Then where would I be?
    The cooking instructions, like the listed ingredients, were straight forward, allowing my mind to wander some more. And no matter how hard I tried to steer my thoughts away from the murder, they veered in that direction.
    I wondered why the police never arrested Ole Johnson. Sure, the best in law enforcement probably didn’t get assigned to cases in the middle of nowhere. But how could cops of any caliber overlook a killer who was standing—or staggering—right in front of them?

Chapter 7
    Following a good ten minutes of awkward silence, Margie spoke, raising her voice to be heard above the running water and the clanging of cookware. “Men are fools for helpless women, and Samantha Berg knew how to act helpless. She was always complainin’ about bein’ broke or misunderstood or somehow mistreated. Oh, she loved to play the victim. But it was all an act until the end, when she got what she deserved. She gotta be the victim for real.”
    Margie stopped ranting only long enough to rinse a kettle and precariously set it on top of the others in the dish rack. “Of course a man doesn’t wanna marry a helpless woman. No, sir-ree. He wants a strong, hard-workin’ wife, but a helpless woman can really get his motor runnin’, especially when he’s older or not thinkin’ straight.”
    I cautiously interjected. “You’re being awfully cynical, aren’t you?”
    She dismissed my remark with a wave of her soapy fingers. “I’m not cynical. I just don’t believe in lookin’ at life through rose-colored glasses. They distort the view.”
    She knocked the water taps closed, dried her hands with a clean towel, and swung it over her shoulder in place of the dirty one, which she tossed into a bucket. “Take Ole and Lena, for instance.” She lifted a stack of mismatched dinner plates from a nearby shelf.
    “Want some help?”
    She considered me for what felt like eternity. She wasn’t about to make this easy. I’d implied her recently deceased brother was a murderer, and she was going to make me