Puddin' on the Blitz

by Tamar Myers

  ‘I did. Thank you, Marigold, you’ve been very illuminating.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  There is a saying that goes: my mama didn’t raise no fool. Unfortunately, I have acted in a foolhardy manner too many times to count. After I was safely ensconced within the protective shell of my automobile, I dialled Hortense Hemphopple, Wanda’s daughter. The dear girl answered on the first ring.

  ‘Miss Yoder! I’ve been on pins and needles, waiting for you to call. I haven’t been able to leave my dorm for two days because the press is camped outside. Every time I open the door someone shouts a question about what it’s like to be in business with a cold-blooded killer. Don’t worry, Miss Yoder, I know that you’re not a murderer, not with a face like yours. But now I’ve been holed up in here so long that they’re starting to think that I have something to hide – you know, like guilt by assassination.’

  ‘That’s guilt by association, dear. Hortense, I realize that you’re in a pickle, but I need you to answer a very important question for me. Do you have an Uncle Stan?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Yoder, I don’t mean to be disrespectful to an adult, but I’m stuck here in my dorm, reporters are insinuating that I’m at least covering for you in that woman’s murder, and I want to know what’s going to happen to the restaurant. I don’t see what my Uncle Stan has to do with this at all.’

  ‘So you do have an Uncle Stan?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Who looks like he was kicked by a horse?’ I said.

  ‘It was a golf club that got him,’ Hortense said.

  ‘Excuse me, dear,’ I said, as I dashed back to the privacy of my car to call the family landline back at The PennDutch Inn. While Freni’s Amish faith forbids her from owning her own telephone, it permits her to use her employer’s. In my absence, I require that she answers it if at all possible. The times when she can’t are usually when Alison is hogging the line.

  This time I got the answering machine, which pointed the finger at Alison again. I wasn’t about to leave a message, however, for fear that Gordon Gaiters might overhear it. Perhaps I should have called Toy, but he had needlessly embarrassed me by mentioning Big Bertha, and I wasn’t in the mood to see him just then. Besides, I had twice as much life experience, which should be roughly equivalent to a gun – at least in my current state of mind. So, I said a short prayer and shifted into foolhardy mode.

  THIRTY

  There’s an old joke that goes something like this: what goes ‘clop, clop, clop – bang – clop, clop, clop?’ The answer: an Amish drive-by shooting. Due to the frequent presence of horse drawn buggies along Main Street, the speed limit is just ten miles per hour. Due to my elevated stress level, folks with keen hearing may have heard my worst swear words escape my lips, as I tried to take the shortest route home. If so, they would have heard: clop, clop, clop – ‘Ding, dang, dong!’ – clop, cop, clop.

  It was as if a representative of every Amish family in the community had chosen that morning to mosey along Main Street, and in an organized fashion as well. Their nineteenth-century conveyances were blocking the street in either direction. Tooting the horn at horses is forbidden and trust me when I say that it would have been a rather foolish thing to do in any case. Therefore, I was forced to weave at a crawl around quite a few creatures, including the horses. When I was finally out of town, and across the narrow bridge that spanned Slave Creek, I sinned grievously by pressing the pedal to the metal and drove twice the legal speed limit of forty-five miles per hour.

  Drivers who text, or even just talk, on their phones are my pet peeve. How dare they risk the lives of my children? That said, the lives of my children now lay in the hands of Wanda’s murderer of an Uncle Stanislaus. In for a penny, in for a pound – of sin, that is. Theoretically, or so I’ve been told, each human life is as valuable as the next. At least in the sight of God. President, king, pope, or murderer, He loves us all the same. Well, try selling that argument to a mother at a time like this.

  Finally, Alison picked up our landline on the first ring. ‘Don’t eat anything!’ I screamed. ‘Gordon Gaiters poisoned Sarah Conway.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell Freni. And call the sheriff.’

  ‘Mom—’

  ‘Just do what I say, dear. Now!’

  ‘Mom, shut up and listen!’

  I listened.

  ‘Mr Gaiters took Little Jacob with him.’

  I screeched to a rocking, thumping halt in the nearest unpaved driveway. ‘Why? Where?’

  Alison’s next words were interspersed with sobs. ‘When he … came down stairs … he … seemed like ner … vous that you … were gone so long, and when Freni told him that you had … gone to see Auntie Agnes, that’s when he took Little Jacob. Mom, he said he had your permission.’

  I had to will my heart out of my throat in order to speak. ‘When was that?’

  ‘Just a few minutes ago. Mom, I tried to call you, but your phone was busy.’

  ‘Right. Alison, call the sheriff. The number’s by the phone. Remember, nobody eats.’ I hung up.

  Whereas previously I’d been merely driving at breakneck speeds, this time I literally flew the back roads to Agnes’s place. Then again, as I’ve stated before, I am prone to bouts of enhanced imagination. Whatever the case may be, I hurtled to a stop less than a meter from the back of Gordon Gaiters’ luxury sedan.

  The evil man was already halfway to the house with my precious son tucked under one arm like a squealing piglet. Like a piglet, Little Jacob was stark naked. Before my mind could jump to the worst conclusion possible, I discovered the reason for my baby’s bare bottom. On the ground, just in front of the car, lay the fullest nappy I’d ever seen. Apparently, Gordon Gaiters had decided that his hostage’s dirty tushie was the lesser of two evils.

  Wanda’s monstrous uncle was not surprised to see me. If anything, he was relieved to have me at his mercy. He set my squirming son on the ground, but he kept a tight grip on one of the child’s wrists. In the other hand he held a pistol which he pointed directly at Jacob’s head.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘by now you’ve figured it all out.’

  ‘But maybe I haven’t,’ I said, stalling for time. ‘What is it that I supposedly know?’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ he said, his eyes flashing. ‘You know that I’m Wanda’s uncle.’

  ‘That’s preposterous,’ I said. ‘How am I supposed to know that?’

  ‘Because you gave Hernia’s biggest gossip the third degree, and when she told you that she recognized me as Wanda’s uncle, you immediately called my grand-niece Hortense to crosscheck her story.’

  ‘Well, fiddle-dee-dee,’ I said. ‘That Marigold ought to get a medal. Not only is she Hernia’s biggest gossip, but she’s the fastest gossip this side of the mighty Mississippi. So, I guess both Marigold and Hortense were in on your murderous scheme too, huh?’

  ‘What? No! You leave my precious niece out of it. Hortense didn’t know anything about the revenge scheme Wanda cooked up.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t work, did it, you nincompoop? You murdered the wrong person; you killed your wife instead.’

  That startled him enough to make his gun hand shake. I had to be more careful.

  ‘How did you know that Karen was my wife?’

  ‘I heard you say so the morning after she died.’

  ‘She wasn’t supposed to be the victim,’ he said. ‘But … she was stubborn – like you. She had certain principles.’

  ‘Those are terrible qualities for a woman to have,’ I said. I strained to hear the sound of police sirens in the distance, but nada. Other than our two voices, and the perceived pounding of my pulse in my ears, the earth was quiet. Even Little Jacob was uncharacteristically mute, staring at me with eyes the size of dinner plates. Trusting eyes. While he waited for his mama to finish gabbing with this strange man, he was doing due diligence on his thumb.

  ‘I’m not some capricious, run-of-the-mill hitman,’ Gordon Gaiters
said. ‘I don’t knock people off on a whim, or because Wanda bears you a grudge. What you don’t know is that she’s promised me a fortune if I ruined your life.’

  ‘Ruined my life how?’ I said. Even the hairs on my toes started to curl.

  Gordon Gaiters chuckled. ‘Hmm, let me see. How about if I killed someone near and dear to you?’

  ‘You harm one hair on my baby’s head,’ I spat, ‘and I’ll tear you limb from limb!’ Believe me, no truer words were ever spoken by a pacifist Mennonite woman.

  ‘Ha! Wanda said you were a first-class idiot. I wouldn’t hurt a child; I have five kids, and ten grandchildren of my own. I only took your son with me as a hostage, in order to keep them other two back at the inn from calling the police.’

  ‘Then who was your intended victim?’ I said.

  ‘Your husband. Your so-called Babester. Wanda says that it’s sickening the way the two of you love each other.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I said. ‘Well then, maybe she can tell me where to find him, because right now I don’t have a clue.’

  Stanislaus Sissleswitzer grinned triumphantly. ‘Bingo! That’s what I thought. Since I’m not into killing kiddies, why not go for the bestie. You and Agnes Miller are as tight as ticks, Wanda says.’

  ‘Tell Wanda to eat a bowl of stewed ticks for lunch,’ I said. ‘I despise Agnes Miller. Go ahead and perform your dastardly deed for all I care, but kindly return the fruit of my loins to my loving arms post haste.’

  ‘Magdalena Yoder, has anyone ever told you that you’re nuts?’

  ‘Is that a “no” then?’

  ‘If I were you, Magdalena, I would shut up now, before this little fellow loses his mommy.’

  By then I was quite positive that Gordon Gaiters was not the praying man that he had originally posed as. He was about as dastardly as they came. I was also quite positive that he had the upper hand, and that if I expected to get out of yet another jam, I needed to pray for guidance, to pray that the Lord would open my eyes to the agencies of help, and the tools of assistance around me.

  ‘Ask, and you shall receive,’ it says in the Bible, and that is so true. Why, once I asked for help in defeating a murderess who was a veritable giantess, and the Lord directed me to use my brassiere as a slingshot. I managed to take down that big broad with a single stone. Anyway, as I cast about for divine answers, I noticed that Agnes’s goat, Gruff, had finally broken out of his enclosure again, and was standing stock-still, a mere ten feet from Gordon Gaiters, and was staring intently at him. I had originally been sceptical when Agnes claimed that Gruff had been neutered, and now by the way that Gruff regarded Gordon Gaiters, I was almost certain that he was not. That old goat had sniffed out Gordon Gaiters’ maleness and regarded him as a rival. All he needed was a little provocation to deliver this monstrous man into my hands.

  By its all-pervasive odour, I was also quite aware of my little tyke’s loaded nappy lying virtually at my feet. Believe me, I am not an uncouth woman, given to fighting dirty. I would never consider flinging a filthy diaper at another human being. No siree, and Bob’s your uncle. Not when the Good Lord had provided a rogue goat with three-foot curved horns. Not to mention – and I say this with all modesty – Yours Truly, had been a pretty ding, dang, dong good softball pitcher, both in high school, and in college. ‘Goad the goat,’ a voice in my head said.

  ‘Stanislaus Sissleswitzer,’ I hissed, ‘you city-slicker sissy. Let go of that child and fight like a man.’ In addition to sounding like a bag of angry snakes, I presented my fists, as I supposed a boxer might, and shuffled my feet a couple of times.

  Gordon Gaiters – a.k.a. Stanislaus – was so taken aback by my behaviour, that he actually did let go of Little Jacob’s chubby hand. The sudden release of his hand startled my son, who had not yet mastered the skill of walking indoors on a smooth surface, much less on stony ground. Little Jacob sat abruptly with a yelp, before toppling backward and just barely striking his head on the ground. My poor boy screamed, but I knew instinctively that it wasn’t physical pain that caused him to cry out; it was fear that brought on this outburst. On the plus side, my son’s reaction distracted Stanislaus Sissleswitzer long enough for me to scoop up the soiled diaper, and throw it underhand, like I’d thrown many a softball.

  Again, I don’t mean to toot my own horn excessively, but I have been blessed with a wicked aim. The diaper landed right where I had intended, which was directly between Billy Goat Gruff’s eyes. Yes, I pitied the poor, innocent animal, for he had done nothing to deserve such shabby treatment. But let us focus on the pluses. Gruff was instantly enraged by the incident. He lowered his head and charged Stanislaus Sissleswitzer with so much force that the old man went sailing into a tangle of blackberry vines and rose bushes. Meanwhile Little Jacob had righted himself and was chortling.

  ‘Guff, guff,’ he said. Gruff, who knew my son quite well, ambled over, and even allowed Little Jacob to pull himself up by tugging on the goat’s beard.

  Or so I imagine, because I was too busy locating Stanislaus Sissleswitzer’s gun. When I had his firearm gripped tightly in my right hand, and my body was shielding Little Jacob, I tried calling Toy again. Before his phone rang the first time, I heard two sets of sirens approaching down Agnes’s long lane.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I interviewed Wanda Hemphopple at the women’s penitentiary three months after her uncle was arrested. Ironically, it was the same prison where my sister Susannah was serving time for aiding and abetting the convicted mass murderer, Melvin Stoltzfus. Incidentally, somehow the superbly inept Melvin managed to escape, and ever since then he has devoted his life to thinking of ways to kill me.

  There were things that I needed to say to the woman who hated me so much that she would try to kill me and my daughter, and then after being sent to prison, she arranged to have my husband murdered. In order to get Wanda to agree to my visit, I had to appeal to her vanity. It was actually the Babester who came up with the idea for how to pull that off. Yes, if you must know, the two of us were back together by then, but put a pin in that for now, as the saying goes these days.

  Gabe told me that one of his favourite television programs had been a series titled Breaking Bad, in which a teacher turned to a life of crime to pay for his medical bills. The astonishing thing to me is that the teacher, who manufactured drugs, was not portrayed as a villain, but as a quasi-sympathetic, multi-dimensional man. Apparently, this show was very popular, and it and its actors won many awards. The ways of this world are often beyond my ken, nonetheless this bizarre plot, as I understood it, gave me the idea that eventually got me to interview Wanda.

  To make a long story short, a nationally syndicated, hour-long television show that airs in prime time pounced on the polished idea I finally presented to them. When I got a message through to Wanda that the show would be called Breaking Even More Bad, she pounced on my offer like a chicken on a June bug. There would be a guest host, a somewhat reluctant man named Bradley Heist (the regular host declined the assignment), but he would be restricted to introducing us, and jump into our conversation only if we found ourselves at a loss for words. But fat chance of that happening.

  I refused to be made over for television. Why put on yet another false face? I am who I am: big pores, busted capillaries, crow’s feet and all. But when Wanda shuffled into the room, accompanied by two armed guards, I was stunned by her appearance. It wasn’t just that she was minus her signature French roll hair style (into which I had once dropped the hotdog), but she was now sporting a man’s buzz cut. Plus, she’d gone completely grey. But what made the biggest difference was that the once skinny Wanda Hemphopple had put on at least thirty pounds. Although I must say that the colour orange did not flatter her in the least, because she looked more like a scowling pumpkin than the Wanda that I once knew.

  It is now my opinion that TV hosts love the sound of their own voices. I have no doubt that Bradley would have been happy to fill the entire hour talking about himself, and how he ha
d overcome his fear of conducting the interview in a penitentiary housing dangerous female psychopaths. Unfortunately for Bradley, one of those dangerous female psychopaths was not about to have her screen time squandered on someone other than herself, or the object of her loathing.

  ‘Yada, yada, yada,’ she said to Bradley, cutting him off in mid-sentence. ‘Wrap it up, will you? I thought the name of this show was Breaking Even More Bad, not Bedtime with Bradley.’

  Although we were surrounded by camera crew and guards, Bradley shrank back in his chair and nodded to me as if to say that it was my turn to speak. Being quite familiar with Wanda’s personality, I knew that her bite was worse than her bark, murder plotting aside. If I wanted to say my piece, and perchance ask a few questions, I needed to jump right in without a second’s delay.

  ‘Wanda, dear,’ I said, ‘you look absolutely stunning.’

  ‘Oh, cut the bull-bleep,’ she said.

  I feel that I must state here that, sadly, prison had coarsened even Wanda’s language, if one can imagine such a thing. Therefore, although I have attempted to provide a careful transcription of a portion of that video, I took the liberty of omitting obscene words and references to bodily functions.

  ‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘I was stunned when you walked into the room.’

  ‘Because I’m fat now?’

  ‘Pshaw, I say. A nice full face fills out all the wrinkles. Just look at skinny old me. I’ve been thinking of tucking business cards into all my creases. Then I won’t lose them, and I just might start a new fashion trend.’

  ‘You’ve never been funny, Magdalena – just pathetic.’

  ‘Very true,’ I said, although I disagreed strongly. ‘You, however, have been mean and angry for as long as I’ve known you, which is my entire life. Why is that?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ Wanda pounded on the metal table that separated us, her handcuffs clanking loudly. It made for good TV, I’m sure, because the camera moved in closer.