Death, Guns, and Sticky Buns

by Valerie S. Malmont

  Maybe it had all been a dream. Falling dreams are common. So are dreams of flying. Flying made me think of wings, which reminded me of angel wings, and I sat up abruptly. It had not been a dream. Of that I was sure! The crumpled heap of blue and white clothing on the rug beside my bed brought it all back to me in vivid detail. Moonbeam and Woody driving me home. Ethe-lind making a big fuss over me. Moonbeam helping me out of my shredded habit and into a T-shirt. Ethelind bringing me a glass of sherry once Moonbeam had gotten me into bed. Woody wishing me happy dreams. Had he really said, “Don't let the bedbugs bite”? The sherry glass, untouched, sat on the bedside table.

  In a few days’ time I'd been shot at, nearly burned to death in my sleep, and been pushed off a balcony. I was Calamity Jane. Hardluck Hannah. Woeful Wanda. Typhoid Tori—no that one didn't apply—at least people hadn't been dying around me, I was the one who was encountering one calamity after another. I knew I could go on forever wallowing in self-pity and browbeating myself with alliteration, or I could get up, get dressed, and go to work. I chose to get up.

  The aroma of fresh coffee attracted me like a magnet. I shoved my feet into my sneakers and, without bothering to tie them, shuffled down the back stairs into the kitchen.

  Every flat surface was covered with dishes, baskets, and boxes full of food.

  “What's happened?” I asked Ethelind.

  “The neighbors heard about your accidents. This is the way Lickin Creekers handle disasters, with loads of food.” She poured coffee into a mug and placed it on the table. “Here you go. Like the Brits, I prefer tea, but I know how you like your coffee.”

  Without tobacco, I thought, but accepted the offering.

  “There's a pretty nice ham from the Hubers, across the lake, and a frozen lasagna from the Younkers. Margaret Umpleby sent a cake. Let's see what else is here. Timmons, pie. Starlipper, spaghetti with beans. Rosenberry, homemade elderberry jam—now, wasn't that nice. It's so hard to make, everything it touches turns slimy. Charlotte Macmillan brought sticky buns on her way to work.” She opened the box from Daywalt's Bakery and put a couple of the buns in the microwave oven. “Nice and fresh—it's today's date on the box. Oretta Clopper, scalloped oysters—I'd better put this in the refrigerator.”

  “Here you go,” she said, placing a piping-hot gooey sticky bun in front of me. “Top off your coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” It didn't taste as dreadful as I'd expected. “How did all these people know about my accident?”

  “Guess they saw it on the evening news last night.”

  I groaned. You mean I was on the news?”

  Ethelind smiled. “Tori, you were the news. They devoted the whole show, except for sports and weather, of course, to a video of you hanging from that bar.”

  I choked as a bit of sticky bun went down the wrong tube. When I recovered, I said, “Video? But there wasn't time for a TV crew to come in.”

  “That's the blessing, or maybe the curse, of affordable video recorders. Everybody and his uncle's got one. There must have been three or four there last night, videoing you from different angles.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “At least the TV station covered your bottom with a fuzzy spot whenever they showed a shot of you from below. So nobody could see your underwear.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Mayor Somping was interviewed, and he said if Woody wasn't waiting to go to trial, he'd give him a medal or something. He said the judge at Woody's sentencing would probably take it into consideration as evidence of Woody's good character.”

  “So he's skipped right over the trial to the sentencing. Sounds as if everybody's mind is made up that Woody's going to be found guilty.”

  “He's the perfect person to take the blame,” Ethelind said. “He's not a Lickin Creek native, and he's not associated with the college. And he doesn't have any money to hire a lawyer.”

  “Poor guy.” I picked up my sticky bun and nibbled on it, savoring every bite. The thought of my ordeal being broadcast made me want to cry. “It's bad enough to be pushed over a railing,” I said. “But I think it's nearly as bad having pictures of me in that situation broadcast all over the Tri-State area.”

  “Did you say you were pushed? Are you sure?” “Of course I'm sure. Somebody hit me so hard in the middle of my back that I lost my balance.” “Were you already leaning over the railing?” I nodded. “I thought I'd heard the girl downstairs call me. I was trying to answer without making a lot of noise and ruining the ghostly atmosphere.

  “It could have been an accident. Maybe you just lost your balance, Tori.”

  “Sure, Ethelind. Just like the fire the other night was an accident.” Her face hardened, and I realized it would have been better not to have reminded her of the damage done to her front parlor.

  “That could have been an accident, too, Tori. You took a sleeping pill. Fell asleep sooner than you expected to. Dropped your cigarette. Happened to me that way a couple of times.”

  “Ethelind, I don't smoke. You know that.” “Nonsense, everybody smokes.” She lit a cigarette to emphasize her statement, and I left the kitchen. She might be smoking, but I was the one who was fuming. The very idea—her insinuating I'd imagined myself in danger, that I'd caused my near-death twice in two days by carelessness. By the time I reached my bedroom, self-doubt had set in. Could she be right? Had I imagined the voice? Leaned over too far? Explained my clumsiness by inventing the story about a blow to my back? And the fire—maybe the tea hadn't been drugged. Maybe I just fell asleep. Maybe Ethelind had dropped a smoldering cigarette on the rug earlier, and it had taken all that time to start the fire.

  What about being shot at? I asked myself. My inner voice reminded me I hadn't actually been shot, and I had no proof that someone had been aiming at me. Besides, what reason would anyone have for wanting me out of the way?

  While I was musing over my situation, I showered and dressed. In slimming black slacks and a red sweater, I stood at the bathroom mirror and jerked a brush through my hair, noting I'd either have to get a haircut soon or let it grow long. Outside, the wind howled, and I knew I'd better throw a jacket on. I grabbed my purse from where it lay on the dresser, and as I walked around the double bed to leave I noticed the blue and white pile of nun's clothing on the floor. I'd take it with me and drop it off at the college. I bent over to pick up the costume, and as I stood, some items dropped to the rug. I gathered them, the key ring and the plastic Baggie full of Wonder Wads I'd found in Mack's desk last night, and put them in my pocket.

  At the office, Cassie, as usual, was solicitous. But this time, she seemed to be holding back on her expressions of sympathy. I'd been through a lot lately. Certainly enough to wear anyone's patience thin.

  I told her the whole story, starting with the ghostly voice calling my name, and ending with my dramatic rescue, which, of course, she had seen on the evening news.

  “You really think someone's trying to kill you?” Cassie asked in an incredulous voice. “Don't you think you could be overreacting?”

  “No, I don't.” But I knew I didn't sound convincing. Ethelind had already planted seeds of doubt in my mind.

  “P. J. often received death threats, Tori.”

  “She did? What for? Did a band of enraged gypsy moths threaten to get even with her for dissing them in the Farm News column?”

  “Don't be silly. Anybody who writes for a newspaper is bound to make enemies. The point I'm trying to make here is that nobody ever followed through and actually tried to kill P. J.”

  My fingers touched the plastic bag in my pocket, and I had an idea that I didn't want to say out loud, not yet anyway. I crossed over to my desk and opened the folder of stories I'd been working on for this week's paper. All were more or less finished. I then looked over the material submitted by our freelance writers and found it all to be well written. A third folder held reports of club meetings, submitted by a dozen Lickin Creek organizations, from Elks to Rotarians. I worked for about an hour cutting an
d reorganizing these articles.

  While I was scratching out and moving words around, Cassie went through the week's photos and selected about six she thought would reproduce well.

  I called a few advertisers and reminded them we needed copy immediately if they didn't want to advertise last week's sales. Then Cassie called some subscribers and pleaded with them to come back to the fold. She even offered them a special rate for renewing.

  By noon we were both looking exhausted, but happy. I still had Letters to the Editor to go through, and we had twenty of our disgruntled subscribers back.

  I dropped my pencils into the cup and turned off the computer. “Think I'll take a long lunch break,” I said. “Be back in a couple of hours.”

  Cassie nodded. “Have a good one,” she said.

  “I will,” I told her, and my fingers once again touched the plastic Baggie in my pocket.

  First I drove to the college. The central lawn looked as if nothing awful had ever happened there. More than a dozen girls, in jeans and LCCFW sweatshirts, crossed it on their way to the gothic-style library. There was a new receptionist at the desk busily sorting mail, so I walked right past her as if I had every right to be in the building and went down the stairs to the basement.

  Even I, a smidgeon taller than five feet, had to duck to avoid some of the overhead pipes. Last night's adventure had left me feeling extremely anxious about being alone, and I paused for a minute to listen for footsteps. But all I heard was the clanking of pipes.

  The corridor was lit by only one hanging bulb, and the door to the storeroom at the end of the hall was in almost total darkness. My neck bristled, as if someone was watching me. How I wished I hadn't listened to the ghost stories about the hospital in the college basement. But even if there were such things as ghosts, these were nuns, I told myself. It stands to reason that good people would turn into good spirits.

  I tried the key that hadn't unlocked Mack's door last night, and it turned easily. When the door swung open, I didn't go in. There was no need to. I relocked the door, pocketed the key ring, and skedaddled out of there faster than a ghost could say “boo.” I now knew how Mack Macmillan had died.

  As I drove across the mountain, I noticed that while many trees were now in full autumn color, a great many others had already dropped their leaves. Even some of the evergreen trees had shed their needles, and their twisted brown branches stretched toward the sky above as if longing for the warmth of the sun. At one bend, the view was so spectacular, I pulled over and stopped for a minute to enjoy it. Below me the little river danced over gray, moss-covered rocks before disappearing into a copse of trees. Beyond were green and golden fields dotted with dollhouse-like farmhouses, barns, and silos. Then came orchards of peach and apple trees, their branches bare and stark against the sky. And off in the far distance were the hazy lavender-blue outlines of the next range of mountains. Once I'd thought of Pennsylvania only in terms of big cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh or small, dingy mining towns. Cities and mining communities were part of Pennsylvania, that was true, but they were far away from lush, mountainous rural south-central Pennsylvania. Here was proof that not all of America had been turned into Anytown, Anywhere, U.S.A. Here, at least, America was still a land of amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesty.

  As I drove past Dr. Washabaugh's office, I saw a few cars and trucks in the parking lot. More people picking up their medical records and hearing the latest gossip from Vesta, I was sure. If they watched the evening news last night, I was probably the subject of conversation. I kept going until I came to the top of the hill that overlooked my destination, Shoestring Hill Farm.

  The drive down to the stone house seemed to take forever, perhaps because I had no desire to tackle the task that would face me when I reached the house. On either side of me, horses played behind white board fences. The fences, the barns, even the wood trim around the windows of the house, looked freshly painted. The woodpile near the house was neatly stacked. Charlotte Macmillan had prepared her farm for whatever winter brought.

  I knocked on the front door, waited, knocked again, then noticed the small doorbell on the door frame. A moment later, the door opened inward and a Plain woman in a lavender dress, wearing a white net bonnet, looked out at me.

  “Yes?” Her tone wasn't very inviting.

  “I've come to see Mrs. Macmillan.”

  “Is she expecting you?”

  “Yes,” I fibbed. Anything to get in.

  She stepped to one side, and I walked past her into a large center hall.

  “Name?”

  “Tori Miracle.”

  “Mrs. Mack's with her personal trainer. She should be finished in about fifteen minutes. You'uns can wait in the living room.” She led me through a curtained archway into a large, expensively decorated room. The furniture was all mahogany and walnut from the Federal period, and although I'm no expert, it all looked genuine to me. No reproductions allowed at Shoestring Hill.

  “Can I get you'uns a cup of tea?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Then I'll get back to my chores. Have a seat.”

  Instead of sitting down, I moved around the room admiring the furniture and the artwork. The painting over the fireplace was of a King Charles spaniel. The two behind the sofa were primitives of a man and woman. I wondered if they were the ancestors of either Charlotte or Mack Macmillan. An arrangement of autumn leaves on top of the Steinway grand piano repeated the soft gold of the silk wallpaper and the rust and moss green of the upholstered furniture.

  French doors at one end of the room were closed, and velvet drapes, as green as an evergreen forest, hid from view what was behind them. They opened quietly when I pulled on them, and I stepped through the doors into a cool study, lit by diffused sunlight streaming through sheer curtains at the far end of the room. A great mahogany partners desk was centered on the Oriental carpet. The telephone on the desk had a light on it, and next to it was a small machine with a typewriter keyboard.

  One wall, from floor to ceiling, was covered with books. I took one from the shelf and saw it was a treatise on the Civil War. Glancing quickly at its neighbors, I saw that the war was the subject of all the books. They ranged from modern fiction like Killer Angels to old leather-bound volumes dating from the late nineteenth century. At first glance, it looked like a collection any university library would be proud to own.

  On the wall opposite the bookshelves hung a copy of the same sepia photograph I'd seen at the college, depicting Macmillan dressed as a Union Army general, with one hand resting on a table and the other on the hilt of his sword. Below the photo, a row of glass cases stretched from one wall to the other. The items on display were similar to what I'd seen at the visitor center at the Gettysburg National Park. Just about anything from the Civil War era was represented, from old canteens to lead bullets. One case was full of daguerreotypes. Another held musical instruments: drums, bugles, even harmonicas.

  So involved was I with looking at the antiques that I jumped when Charlotte appeared by my side and said, “I'm glad to see you survived last night's ordeal.”

  “Did you watch it on TV?”

  She shook her head. “I've been out of town for a few days, visiting a friend's horse farm in North Carolina. Lela, my housekeeper, told me about it when I returned this morning. It must have been a terrifying experience.” She gestured graciously at the couch and urged me to have a seat. Almost immediately, Lela appeared with a tea tray. Charlotte filled two bone china teacups and asked me if I preferred milk or lemon.

  “Milk, please. And two sugars.”

  With tiny silver sugar tongs, she dropped two cubes of sugar into one cup and passed it to me. It was a gracious ritual I had often watched my mother perform for her guests at the embassy. Charlotte sat back and looked at me over the brim of her cup. I wished I could see through the mask, for just a minute, to read on her face what must be running through her mind.

  The telephone rang and flashed bef
ore we had a chance to talk. Charlotte excused herself and crossed over to the partners desk. After a few words about the sudden change in weather and assurances that she was just fine, she said, “I'm sorry. The stable will be closed Saturday. I'm going to a wedding.”

  When she returned to her seat, I asked, “That light on the phone. I presume that was for your husband?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I heard he was deaf—I mean hearing impaired. How could he take phone calls when he couldn't hear?”

  “There's a special operator who types the message as it's relayed to her. After it came up on the screen, Mack would type his response.”

  “Did you learn sign language to communicate with him?”

  Charlotte laughed. “Tori, signing was my first language. My mother was hearing impaired, deaf as the proverbial post if you prefer. As an adult, when I wasn't working with horses, I taught signing. That's where I met my husband. He had lost his hearing suddenly from a viral infection, and he signed up for my class. We fell in love and were married shortly after. I interpreted for him in Congress until he retired. Still do, I mean I still did—”

  “I can see how he depended on you, but how did he manage when you weren't around? I met him for the first time at the college and you weren't with him then.”

  “Mack could read lips if people spoke slowly and looked directly at him. And he often did things alone. I couldn't follow him around twenty-four hours a day.”

  “That explains why he thought my name was Dorie when we were introduced.”

  She nodded. “Right.” Her eyes narrowed. “I'm delighted to see you, Tori, but I'm wondering why you're here.”

  My shaking hand sloshed tea into the saucer. I put the cup on the table in front of me and swallowed hard. “I have something to tell you about your husband's death.”