The Death of Pie (10 page)

Personally, I think that our honesty should have counted for something with Wanda. Like Catholics in their confessional, one traditional Mennonite (
moi
), and one modern Mennonite (Agnes), had put everything we had right out there in the open on the cheap Formica tabletop in an even cheaper plywood booth of a greasy breakfast food restaurant. So how many points do you think Wanda gave us?
Nada
. Zero.
Zilch
. Zed.

‘Well, girls, that was certainly enlightening,' Wanda said. ‘Too bad it wasn't what I was after. So out comes the first pin.'

It was only a small exaggeration to say that Wanda's hairpins were the size of croquet wickets. But whether they were smaller or larger it's hard to remember, given the stress I was under. In any case, just the act of removing one was enough to start an avalanche of dandruff and assorted animal protein products, the likes of which I choose not to enumerate, lest I trigger a post-traumatic gag response. Suffice it to say that the chances that I would stay and eat breakfast at the Sausage Barn that morning were the same as those for the continued existence of an orb of frozen precipitation in a sinner's place of perpetual punishment. In other words, not much.

Let it be known that I did not crack until the fourth hairpin was pulled from Wanda's swaying stack of vermin-infested keratin. Then I cried ‘uncle,' and just so as not to give her complete satisfaction, I added the name of Mama's brother to the word.

‘Uncle Harlan!'

‘So that means you give up?' Wanda said gleefully. The woman is a card-carrying sadist. Quite possibly she's even a card-carrying nudist – the English English have their quirks, you know.

‘Don't press her,' Agnes begged. ‘You know our Magdalena. She couldn't be more stubborn if she was the son of a two-headed mule
and
a US Congressman. Please, Wanda, just let her explain why she is investigating us while she is still willing to do so.'

‘All right,' Wanda growled. Mercifully she snatched the hairpins off the table and jammed them back into the structure of destruction.

I smiled pleasantly – as is my wont, I might add. ‘Ladies, it is like this. I was living my life, ever so peacefully, like the meek and mild little housewife that I am—'

‘Hardly little,' Agnes muttered. ‘You're five foot ten.'

‘Hardly meek, either,' Wanda said. ‘You're like a wounded badger that keeps trying to hug a porcupine.' Actually, Wanda said something cruder, but my mind refuses to go there.

‘That is so not true!' I declared. ‘For your information, Agnes, I've already shrunk an inch, and I'm as docile as—'

‘Ah, ah, ah,' Wanda said, wagging a greasy finger in my face. ‘Lying will make your nose grow, and given your already out-of-kilter proportions, I wouldn't do that, Magdalena.'

‘Agnes,' I implored. ‘Aren't you going to defend me?'

My very best friend squinted before answering. ‘Well, your nose is a little long and pointy.'

‘Et tu
, Brutus? OK then, here goes! I was going to spare your feelings, but not anymore. As you both know by now, that despicable – but may she rest in peace – bestselling author, Ramat Sreym was poisoned. Our earnest but not very experienced Chief of Police has asked me to assist him in interviewing a list of potential suspects.'

‘Speaking of whom,' Wanda snapped, ‘why did you essentially bankroll his transfer here from Charlotte?'

‘Yeah,' said Agnes. ‘Why?'

‘I didn't bankroll anything,' I wailed. Oops. ‘I
funded
it,' I said firmly. ‘That makes me a
fund
amentalist, just like the two of you.' At that I chuckled pleasantly.

‘I resent that implication,' Agnes murmured. ‘I am a closet Democrat with such leftist leanings that I am thinking of leaving the Mennonite Church and becoming a Presbyterian.'

‘But Jesus was a Mennonite!' I said. Right away I realized that I had misspoken; Jesus was Jewish. After all, Jesus' mother was Jewish, and so was Jesus' father. They even had a Jewish wedding, not a Christian wedding, much to the disappointment of some of his twenty-first century followers.

‘Listen up, people,' Wanda said, ‘we have to stay on track. At any minute more day labourers are going to come pouring in demanding to be served cheap but delicious children's lunch plates. Magdalena, are you saying that this boy-toy Chief of Police actually thinks that Agnes and I are capable of murder?'

‘You and I are not on the list, Wanda, dear; just Agnes. And for your information, I only wanted pancakes.'

Wanda slid from the booth and was on her feet in a flash. ‘What in the blazes kind of insult is that? Miss I-Never-Saw-A-Cheesecake-I-Didn't-Eat, Agnes Miller, is on the suspect list, but me, the woman who is so mean that everyone says that she puts gravel in her granola, doesn't rate being a suspect – tell me, how is
that
fair?'

I shivered. ‘I don't write the news, I only report it. But for the record, I never heard that bit about the granola.'

‘Oh, I did,' said Agnes. ‘Jeb Peterson cracked a molar last July on a bowl of Wanda's granola.'

‘Nothing lasts forever,' Wanda said, ‘including body parts.'

‘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.'

‘B
ut 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 happy 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.