The Death of Pie

by Tamar Myers

  ‘But a bad reputation lasts longer than a good one, doesn’t it?’ Agnes said. She was glowing like a Halloween pumpkin with two candles inside. ‘I’ve never been a bad girl before. This is kind of fun.’

  ‘Agnes, that’s awful,’ I said. ‘You can’t take pleasure in being a suspect in a murder case.’

  Wanda’s greasy index finger got a workout as she jabbed the air. ‘If you get convicted they’ll send you to the state penitentiary, where you will undoubtedly have a boyfriend named Scarface Sue, or Connie the Cruncher. How does that strike your fancy?’

  Agnes clasped her plump hands (with the remarkably slender fingers) and closed her eyes dreamily. ‘Well, you know, I have never been able to attract a real boyfriend, and now I am forty-nine years old. That’s nearly half a century. Hey, maybe it is time to try something new.’

  Wanda’s forefinger ceased moving. ‘Agnes may have a point there. After all, she isn’t exactly – well, you know. What I mean is, a hard-bitten prison babe is more likely to find her fluffiness appealing. And society, even on the outside, is changing. Heck, the way my marriage is going, maybe I should give it a try.’

  ‘Try, schmie!’ I wailed. ‘Just because society says it’s OK doesn’t make it right, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you should go ahead and do it. If society said it was OK to jump off Lover’s Leap, would you?’

  Agnes opened her eyes slowly and smiled. ‘Maybe. If Scarface Sue dumped me for Wanda, I might.’

  I laughed.

  ‘Hey, watch it.’ Wanda laughed as well.

  ‘Wanda,’ I said, ‘now be a dear and get our orders so I can begin grilling Agnes.’

  SEVEN

  ‘But I want to stay and listen,’ Wanda whined. ‘Please, Magdalena, can’t I?’

  ‘Sorry, dear,’ I said, ‘but this is semi-pseudo police business.’

  ‘Whatever that means. Magdalena, I thought you said we were besties.’

  ‘All right!’ Wanda can be so exasperating. For example, I wear a white organza prayer cap because the Bible says that women should keep their hair covered at all times; at that moment, however, this little white cap was practically kept airborne by puffs of steam.

  ‘Be right back!’ Wanda raced off into the kitchen to check on our orders, made like a lightning bolt to lock the front door (just in time too) and then was back, seated in the booth beside me before I could perform a private function behind the privacy of a scalloped-edged hanky embroidered with violets.

  ‘Yuck, that’s really gross,’ Agnes said.

  ‘You had better get used to it, dear,’ I said, ‘because I’m afraid that you’ll be seeing a lot worse than that in prison. Besides, you weren’t supposed to look. I ask you, is nothing sacred any more?’

  ‘Magdalena, I am referring to that humongous wad of chewing gum on the side of the booth just above your shoulder.’

  ‘Ach!’ Not desirous of dining next to a mound of someone else’s masticated mucilage, I scooted all the way over to the aisle.

  ‘What gives?’ Wanda said when she returned.

  ‘Your booth has cooties,’ Agnes said. ‘Really, Wanda, do you ever clean in here?’

  ‘Oh, there you are, you little devil!’ Wanda reached right over me and snapped that hunk of gum off the wall with a practiced hand. Cheeks bulging, she commenced chewing, but that didn’t stop her from talking.

  ‘Go on, Magdalena; grill Agnes like one of the proverbial weenies you’re always yapping about when you conduct your silly little investigations.’

  Believe me, if looks could kill Wanda would have toppled over dead. I sighed. A wise woman knows when to cut her losses; you know, when to hold them and when to run. I shared this knowledge with a guest who stayed at my inn eons ago by the name of Kenny Rogers. In my warbling soprano voice I even sang these thoughts to a catchy little tune I’d written. Mr Rogers said that he might quote me in a song someday, maybe even use my tune, but since I never listen to secular music I don’t know if he ever followed through on that threat.

  ‘Out with it, Magdalena!’ Poor Agnes, I couldn’t rightly blame her. I wouldn’t want to be at the end of my weenie-roasting pole either.

  ‘Calm down.’ I took my time removing a small yellow tablet from my oversized, plain brown leather pocket book.

  ‘My, but aren’t you the technocrat,’ Wanda said.

  I smiled pleasantly. ‘Really dear, you ought to list sarcasm on your menus as a side dish. As it so happens, I prefer to think of myself as traditional.’ I cleared my throat as a symbolic way of cleansing my thoughts of Wanda’s rudeness.

  ‘Now, Agnes,’ I said, ‘in her ghastly tell-all novel, Butter Safe Than Sorry, the deceased depicts you as a somewhat-nervous-Nellie-like, anal-retentive roly-poly but fiercely loyal and exceedingly bright friend of the gracious, but less than comely, proprietress of the charming PennDutch Inn. Did that description in any way upset you?’

  When Agnes is astounded, her open mouth forms a perfect but very small circle. Imagine a pink Lifesaver candy, if you will. Unfortunately, if she is to speak, this most attractive arrangement is but fleeting.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘what you just described did not upset me, because clearly that woman and I have nothing in common.’

  ‘Harrumph,’ Wanda said.

  I treated Wanda to a glimpse of my bared and gritted teeth. ‘Nobody actually says the word “harrumph,” Wanda, except in British novels. One is supposed to just clear one’s throat.’

  ‘Then consider my throat cleared,’ Wanda said. ‘The Agnes character in the book fits the real life one to a T. Ask the real one sitting here about her uncles.’

  ‘What about my uncles?’ Agnes said. I suppose that I would have gotten around to that question sooner or later, but frankly I was rather glad that Mrs Buttinski Hemphopple diverted some of the inevitable heat.

  ‘Well, dear,’ I said, ‘there is the small fact that – no pun intended – both your uncles spend more time naked than Prince Harry.’

  ‘If only they looked like His Royal Hunkiness,’ said Wanda, waggling her eyebrows. Given that said brows resembled giant black caterpillars with their antennae intertwined, it was like watching them perform a mating dance. Surely Wanda’s unplucked eyebrows are illegal in several Southern states.

  ‘Lust does not become you,’ I said to Wanda, merely by way of imparting information.

  I turned my full attention back to Agnes. My best friend, my confident, my bulwark against the slings and arrows of whatever life would send our way since we were a pair of giggling lasses (perhaps she more than I), looked absolutely crestfallen. Given that we Mennonites of Amish derivation feel more guilt than Catholics and Jews combined, I wanted to crawl across Wanda’s cheap laminate table and clasp Agnes’s head to my scrawny bosom.

  But I had a job to do, and besides, the same inbreeding that produced the overabundance of guilt genes in my people also made us even less physically demonstrative than the English English (perhaps even more so than the English English upper class), so that I would never actually hug someone in public. There is even a joke that goes: how can one tell if a Mennonite woman is having sex? The answer: she stops moving. Of course, I find that joke offensive and repulsive, albeit somewhat titillating. I knew for a fact that this scenario did not apply to all Mennonite women – well, enough said.

  ‘Agnes,’ I said, ‘surely you were deeply embarrassed by the way Ramat Sreym portrayed you in her book. Not to mention the fact that she had your uncles leading a nudist parade through the streets of Hernia. A month after the book was published, and had been passed all around the county, you said yourself at the time that you couldn’t go anywhere without people snickering behind your back. As I recall, didn’t your minister even make some joke about it, like you being the most famous person in the congregation?’

  Agnes grew shockingly, inhumanly red. I knew then that she was either going to self-combust with anger at me for reminding her of the horrible humiliation which Hernia had seemed more than happ
y to heap upon her, or else dissolve into a briny sea of tears.

  ‘Of course, your minister was wrong to say anything,’ I said quickly.

  Agnes stared straight ahead in the way that folks do when they’re trying not to cry. Unfortunately for both of us, that meant she was looking directly at me while trying hard not to see me. Trust me; that was a losing proposition given that my Yoder nose has its own zip code.

  Meanwhile, Wanda, my second-best friend, tossed her ginormous glob of gum from tonsil to tonsil as if she had a pair of elfin basketball players living in her throat. Frankly, her silence hurt at a time like that. What good is a second-best friend if she can’t swoop in and clean up one’s messes? I used to do it for my slovenly, slutty sister Susannah all the time without being prompted. I did it because that’s what sisters do – that and scream at each other, even if they are demure and quiet on the outside.

  Finally, Wanda deigned to speak. ‘Magdalena,’ she said, ‘how could you be so cruel to poor, sweet Agnes?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just look at how you’ve embarrassed her, and the dear woman doesn’t have a brain in her head. How is she going to fight back?’

  ‘Fight back? Against what?’

  ‘Your insults, Magdalena,’ Wanda said, ‘that’s what.’

  ‘But I didn’t say anything insulting. I was just—’

  ‘Doing your duty, jah?’ Wanda said, faking a German accent. ‘You are my best friend, Magdalena, but at times like now you make me sick.’

  ‘I don’t want to be your best friend,’ I wailed. ‘I want to be your second-best friend.’

  Wanda shook her head while the gum wad stayed put. ‘No can do, Magdalena. That spot is taken.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘By Agnes, of course.’

  I have often prayed for miracles, none of which have happened. Trust me, the Good Lord has showered upon me numerous gifts for which I would never have dared to ask. But as in the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale of the mermaid who gave up her tongue for a pair of legs, my biggest blessings came at a great cost.

  While I was blessed with the most handsome husband in the entire world, the Babester and his beloved ‘Ma’ were a package deal. And yes, I am a very wealthy woman, but I earned my money by turning the family farm into a bed and breakfast for the über rich – those folks who think that they can actually buy a cultural experience rather than experience a culture. Tragically, the farm was not mine to transform in this way until after my parents died in a vehicle crash in the Allegheny Tunnel, squashed as they were between a tanker truck carrying milk and another truck containing a load of state-of-the-art running shoes.

  So then, when dear, sweet Agnes turned her normal shade of pink and her lips momentarily resumed their miniature perfect bow shape, even though I was praying for a miracle I certainly didn’t expect one. Even our gum-heaving hostess, Wanda, must not have, because she ducked the second Agnes began to speak.

  ‘Magdalena, you might be the stricter sort of Mennonite, but I am a Mennonite as well. What’s more important is that I believe that, as Jesus taught us, we should forgive seven times seventy. So I forgive you for all your manifold sins past and present.’

  ‘You can’t!’ Wanda cried. At this the wad of gum catapulted from her mouth and landed, smack, dab on the head of an enormous housefly just as it landed on the table in front of us. The masticated matter pinned the unfortunate creature to the table in such a manner that, although it could not fly, it could spin in tight circles whilst buzzing annoyingly. If you ask me, it was the perfect metaphor for Wanda.

  ‘But I can!’ Agnes said. To my everlasting gratitude, she squeezed out of her side of the booth and hoisted herself to her feet. ‘Come on, Magdalena. We don’t need to eat here. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite for pecan waffles and smoked Virginia ham.’

  ‘But you didn’t order pecan waffles and smoked Virginia ham!’ Wanda wailed, sounding disconcertingly like me. ‘I don’t even serve them. Where do you think you are – Cracker Barrel?’

  No sooner did she say that than a buzzer attached to her apron sounded, informing us that our correct order of eggs, pancakes, warm maple syrup and sizzling bacon was ready for pickup. Pavlov’s dogs had nothing over Agnes and me, who resumed sitting so quickly that our butts hit the benches almost before they left, making the collider in Switzerland redundant.

  ‘Wanda, be a dear,’ I said, ‘and clean up that atrocious mess on the table. Then disinfect the table – in a spritely manner, of course – before you make haste to retrieve our orders. Cold eggs anywhere are disgusting, but when your pancakes get cold they’re like hockey pucks. Just remember, however, that I am a wealthy woman who tips generously for services rendered.’

  That last bit was quite true. While I am famous for pinching a penny until it screams, I do reward service people handsomely if they at least attempt to serve in a competent manner. The same holds true for managers who act as their own servers – even if they are old friends with hedgerow eyebrows and potentially hazardous hairdos.

  Wanda’s glare burned hot enough to keep the Sausage Barn’s coffee at just the right temperature all through a delicious lunch. The pancakes were perfect. The bacon was the best that it could be, and even the eggs were exemplary. I was true to my word, and Wanda received such a fat tip that she was tongue-tied when we departed, and hence unable to invite herself along to the next bit of trouble I was about to find myself in.

  EIGHT

  In the narrow strip of farmland between Buffalo Mountain and Stucky Ridge lies Doc Shafer’s farm. He too is some sort of multiple cousin – distant enough that legally we could wed, but on paper the math would have us being closer than siblings, despite the fact that Doc is old enough to be my father. While I hate to give her any credit, that unscrupulous author, Ramat Sreym, did pen something clever when she wrote: ‘Oh what a tangled web they weave, when Amish-Mennonites conceive!’ Indeed, this is true. The lines on my family tree crisscross over each other in a good number of places, so much so that I have had to use bits of brightly-colored embroidered floss to represent the various links between the branches.

  Doc used to be a veterinarian – back in the days when Noah had his ark. He still goes by the title ‘Doc’ and keeps a few acres of pasture turned over to a lone Jersey cow named Latte and her companion, a black billy goat he calls Ramses. Until a few months ago he had an elderly hound named Old Blue who used to meet me at the top of the long gravel lane, and which, Doc claimed, could smell me coming a half-hour ahead of my arrival. That was a nonsense claim since I was often spontaneous and occasionally showered.

  On this particular day it gladdened my heart to find Doc outside tending to a pot of chrysanthemums. When he saw the cruiser approaching with me in it he stood and waved, grinning like any old goat might. When he ascertained that I had Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, Agnes, in tow, the smile morphed into something only a ‘Doc-watcher’ might call a grimace. But Doc is ever the gentleman, and he would never hurt a lady’s feelings. Besides, he is just as closely related to Agnes as he is to me, maybe even closer. The rumour that Doc and Agnes are one and the same person is just that: a rumour. Only a disturbed woman with an overactive imagination, and an impossible mother-in-law, could ever think up such a lame story.

  Now where was I? Oh, yes – the old man was delighted to see me, and I him. Doc dropped his garden scissors and bottle of green insecticide, and threw his not-so-withered arms around me. When he was a veterinarian, Doc could shoe a horse, and throw a horse around with their shoes, so he’s still pretty ripped for an old geezer. If you closed your eyes tightly you might even think that you were being hugged by a man in his forties, not an octogenarian. Doc even smells as if he’s hung on to a bit of testosterone. Yes, I know, nowadays one can get a prescription from a medical doctor and roll the stuff under one’s armpits like a deodorant, but Doc is a big believer in homemade remedies. If I were a betting woman, which again, I am not, I would wager that Doc and his billy goat, Ramses, s
mell rather much alike.

  I was not surprised when the first words Doc said were, ‘Ladies, you’re just in time for dessert!’ He didn’t even mention Hernia’s cruiser, but then, why should he? In recent years, it seemed, I’d spent more time in it than out.

  Of course, we had just eaten pancakes soaked in syrup, but there isn’t a Mennonite alive who will turn down dessert. Unlike Roman Catholics, we Mennonites never preached about the Seven Deadly Sins. When I was growing up the word gluttony sounded like a province somewhere near Tuscany. In those days, when Spandex was not yet invented but girdles were de rigueur, we ate until it hurt, and then we ate some more. We were even very fond of a dessert called Girdle Buster Pie.

  ‘What are you serving?’ Agnes said. The woman believes in staying informed.

  ‘Girdle Buster Pie,’ Doc said.

  ‘Lead the way, old man,’ I said.

  Seeing as how the three of us were inbred Mennonites, we wasted no further time with unnecessary pleasantries like hugs, kisses or handshakes. Those are all ways of spreading diseases and, if you ask me, they should no longer be practised in casual situations.

  As for the custom of shaking hands with someone just before a meal, or holding hands during grace, those customs should be outlawed, I tell you! Outlawed! The Good Lord gave us the sense to identify the cold virus and know that it is spread via hands, and then we turn around and mock him by spreading the virus while we thank God for our food? For shame!

  ‘Earth to Magdalena,’ Doc said. ‘You almost tripped going up the top step.’

  ‘Forgive me, Doc,’ I said. ‘I was off on another rampage.’

  ‘That’s why we love you,’ he said with a chuckle.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you might not be singing the same tune when you hear why it is we’ve come.’

  Doc opened the door with a flourish and ushered us in. His dear wife, Emma, had passed away eighteen years ago, but you wouldn’t know it. The house is as neat as a pin. There is not a speck of dust – anywhere! Believe me; I checked using the hem of my white cotton slip when Doc went to get our desserts. And the overstuffed chairs still have doilies pinned to the backs and armrests. What man would do that, unless he was still in mourning for his wife and didn’t want to change the look of things?