The Death of Pie (30 page)

My words of intended comfort were interrupted by the scraping of the lock being removed from the hasp once more. ‘It's not my fault that it has to end this way,' I could hear her say. ‘It's your fault, Magdalena, for being so darn nosy.' Of course, being a lapsed Presbyterian, Wanda used a stronger swear word.

By the time the door opened to near-blinding light, my right hand – my strongest – had closed around the handle of a heavy plastic jug. I lifted the gallon vessel and swung it at the silhouette coming through the doorway. How was I to know that the cap wasn't screwed on tightly? Not only did Wanda experience being hit in the sternum with a heavy object, but a good deal of concentrated cleaning fluid, which was meant for her sticky floors, splashed all over her upper body and may have gotten into her eyes.

One could only feel sorry then for Wanda. The poor dear screamed like a teenager without phone privileges. I had meant only to disable the woman, and then only just long enough for Alison and me to make our getaways. I'd had absolutely no wish to maim her. Thank the Good Lord, at least, that during that fracas Wanda dropped her pistol and Alison thought to pick it up. And, in a rare moment of maternal clarity, I thought to snatch it from Alison's hands and stuff it down my bra. Right cup – there's more room in there. In all honesty, in order to get the small pistol to fit I had to ditch the store-bought pad that it came with plus the two pairs of Gabe's rolled-up knee socks. (Decades ago this was a
Playtex Living Bra
, but ever since Little Jacob was born, this brassiere has been slowly starving.)

Now then, with Wanda's weapon under wraps, so to speak, I felt free to lend her a hand. ‘Alison, grab an arm! Let's drag her to the kitchen sink and wash whatever it is out of her peepers.'

Wanda kept screaming. ‘No, no! Just leave me alone. Go away.'

‘Nonsense, dear,' I said firmly. ‘We can't leave you like this, can we, Alison?'

‘Uh, Mom, why the heck can't we? Wanda, like, was gonna kill us; or did fainting make ya forget everything?'

‘Yes, but dear, “all's well that ends well,” right?'

‘Mom, them Jesus words sound awfully nice and all, but like Dad's always saying, ya can't just pick and choose. How about “it ain't over until the fat lady swings”? That means that we gotta get Wanda over to the sheriff in Bedford. She needs to be arrested and
hanged
for killing that beautiful author lady from Baluchistan.'

Baluchistan?
Oh, well, by then we'd gotten Wanda's decidedly not-so-bony butt over to the sink. The entire time the wiry woman had been cursing so bad that even Alison could no longer translate. That was just fine with me; I have what is called a phonographic memory, and can recall conversations word for word, years later. That talent can be hazardous to a marriage, but in this case it merely meant that I would ask Gabe later about Miss Potty Mouth's plethora of putdowns.

‘Do your best to hold the little varmint,' I said, not unkindly, ‘while I hose her off. She's wiggling like a ten-pound mudpuppy, and I have to rinse these chemicals out of her eyes.'

‘Stop it or I'll sue!' Wanda shrieked. Admittedly, the ‘s' word does give me pause. ‘I'm not worried about my
eyes
, you idiots; but you might get my
hair
wet, and it isn't one of my hair-washing months.'

‘Get her hair wet, Mom,' Alison chortled.

Oh, to be young again and able to chortle with abandonment! Alas, I was far too weighed down by incredulity, followed by a heaping helping of judgment.

‘What do you mean by a “hair-washing” month?'

‘Don't be dense, Magdalena. I take down my hair and wash it for spring on the first warm day in April. Then I wash it again in September. That's all human hair requires – no more, no less. This is the secret to my beautiful long locks which, as you know, are the envy of fertile young women everywhere in the county.'

Wanda has not been fertile since John Locke played with God as a child (take your pick as to who was the child). But who am I to challenge her statement, or her fertility, for that matter? I thought that my womb was as barren as the Gobi Desert, but then the Good Lord blessed me with the cutest baby boy in the entire world, including Justin Bieber.

‘Pull Wanda's arm down to her side,' I directed Alison. ‘And then throw your arms around her middle. Here, now get this other arm in there. Yeah, like that. Now start breathing through your mouth.'

While I spoke, I undid the masses of fetid hair and began wrapping it around and around the little woman, beginning at her shoulders. When I reached a point that was a few inches above her wrist, I stopped and reversed direction. That way, I was able to wrap Wanda's own wands of keratin around her a good six times, which I then tied off in one humongous knot.

By then Wanda was fit-to-be-tied, if you'll pardon the pun. ‘I should have killed you both when I had the chance,' she said. ‘Oh, why did I have to let my fond memories of us as best friends our entire lives get in the way?'

‘Maybe that is because they were false memories,' I ventured. ‘Agnes always was, and still is, my bestest friend; you were never more than second best. Not a month went by that you didn't threaten to rip out my tongue to feed it to your pet lizard, Iggy.'

‘For your information, Smarty Pants,' Wanda said, ‘Iggy was an iguana, not a lizard.'

‘That does it,' I said, having lost what was left of my patience. My original intention had been to rinse the jug's contents out of Wanda's eyes, but now I just cared about getting her wet. I wanted to punish Wanda. As if
I
had a right to do that? Well, I didn't. ‘Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord, and I certainly wasn't He.

I have no doubt that I would have proceeded on this shameful path had not the sheriff and his minions burst into the kitchen through the rear kitchen door. Unfortunately for Wanda, at that moment Alison and I were trying to lift her up and into the industrial sink, which is the size and height of a laundry room tub. To be sure, we were startled. Therefore, as one might guess, we dropped the poor dear like a hot potato.

O
n the day that Wanda Sissleswitzer Hemphopple was arrested for the kidnapping of Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen and Alison Lyre Yoder-Rosen, she was also charged with the murder of Debbie Sue Nelson, aka Ramat Sreym. Even Debbie's publisher didn't know what her ‘real' name was, so you can imagine the surprise we folks in Hernia felt. Still, for some of us in particular, like Pastor Nate, it was a great relief to not only have one's name cleared of suspicion, but to have Debbie's killer brought to justice.

Of course, Toy's name was also cleared, but he never got over the fact that
I
thought that
he
might be capable of murder. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again: as a faithful Christian, I don't believe in karma. Still, I can't help but think that he brought it all on himself, by hanging out with Wanda and watching filthy prison movies with her in the jailhouse that I pay for out of the generosity of stone-cold heart (as some would have you believe).

As for the tables being flipped the other way – that's like comparing apples and oranges; I
know
that I don't commit murder. Shame on Toy for even permitting himself the trace of such a thought. I have given him back his job, but he and I will never speak again, unless it pertains to village business, or matters of faith – or if that young whelp sees the light of day and comes crawling to me on his hands and knees begging for my forgiveness. Who knows, if Toy catches me on a day after I've had a good cuddle with Gabe, I've taken a nice long bath in Big Bertha with all her Jacuzzi sprays, the baby hasn't thrown food at me, Alison hasn't rolled her eyes in reaction to something I've said, and that crazy cult leader who birthed my husband doesn't try to stuff him back inside her womb –
if
all those things fall into place on a given day, then Toy won't even have to get down on his hands and both knees to beg. Just one knee will do.

As for Alison and myself: I think that we have both done a marvellous job of getting on with our lives. It goes without saying that I am extremely proud of that girl. Sure, she sent a photo to Sheldon instead of texting the sheriff for help, but the good news is that Sheldon had the smarts to call the sheriff. When the story about our little adventure hit the news – first local, and then even the national morning shows – Alison was entirely candid about what she'd done. Who knows, she may even have saved lives by advising her peers that they might still have something to learn from their ‘ancient, like older than the dinosaurs' parents.

On a warm October day, when the leaves were at their peak, our little family drove up to Stucky Ridge for a picnic lunch. Stucky Ridge, which is the highest point in the county, is a rocky spur in the Southern Allegheny Mountains. From the crest, on a clear day, one can see forever – if it weren't for the interfering blue haze which denotes our neighboring state of Maryland. I haven't travelled to Maryland recently, but if one insisted on going, I would advise stocking one's vehicle with certain necessary provisions. (I have heard that the English English are particularly fond of Toad in the Hole and Spotted Dick.) Frankly, one would think that a really committed – and dare I say moral? – traveller would refrain from such unsafe practices and restrict themselves to enjoying the scenery. Keep the toad out of the hole until after the wedding, I say, and there will be no spotted dick!

Thank heavens that a hazy Maryland is not all there is to see from atop Stucky Ridge. There is Lover's Leap, for instance, where legend has it that a Delaware Indian maiden leaped to her death when her sweetheart was killed in battle; there is a fabulous view of my precious village of Hernia; one
could
see the bathroom window of one of the guestrooms at the PennDutch four miles beyond that, if one had a telescope that powerful; and last, but far from least, is the final resting place of Hernia's elite. This sacred plot of land is known as Settler's Cemetery. The first wave of European settlers to live in Hernia is buried up here, all with enviable views. From that generation forward, nobody but their descendants are allowed to be buried in Settler's Cemetery.

On that fine October day, after we'd consumed the delicious lunch that Freni had prepared for us, Alison and I wandered off to explore the cemetery. Being female, our noses are a bit more sensitive than Gabe's, and we'd both detected an advance whiff of soiled nappy odour escaping from Little Jacob's dungarees. The way I see it, our son carries an equal amount of my husband's genes, ergo Gabe is equally responsible for removing waste from the little tyke's jeans.

‘Mom,' Alison said as we wandered amongst the headstones, ‘am I related to all these people too?'

‘Just about,' I said. ‘See over there, where the best views are – those were the pioneers. There are ten family names in that section, and you and I are each descended from eight of those families – the same eight families, just in different combinations.'

‘What happened to the other two families?' she said.

I sighed. ‘It's a tragic story, dear; history often is. The Shmatte family was wiped out by yellow fever, and it is said that the Jungfrau family turned yellow, changed their name to Jones and immigrated to Wales.'

‘For real?'

I shrugged. ‘That's the rumor. Personally I find that story highly offensive; good sturdy Amish stock doesn't succumb that easily to disease.'

‘Yeah. Hey, Mom, that was a pretty close call we had at the Sausage Barn, wasn't it?'

‘As close as they come, dear,' I said. ‘You know, I'm not supposed to ask, but how do you
feel
your talk sessions are coming along with Debra?'

Alison grunted, which meant a score of two thumbs for Debra. At Gabe's insistence she was seeing a licenced psychologist to help her process post-traumatic stress.

I was raised hearing the expression: ‘Talk is cheap.' Trust me; talking to Debra is anything but cheap. However, thus far it seems to have been worth every penny spent.

At any rate, not only does Alison appear to have established a rapport with the young therapist, but one of my pre-conditions of letting her go to a head-shrink in the first place was that the real ‘head-case' in the family also get some counselling. And
no
, I am not referring to myself ! I speak of none other than the inverted triangle with the fluctuating accent.

‘Is there part of your chats with Debra that you'd be comfortable sharing with me?'

‘Mom!'

For the record, Alison and I have frequently talked about our close brush with death at Wanda's hands. The subject arose dozens of times a day at first; less frequently now. To be honest, I am intensely curious about what is being said behind the closed door marked:
Debra Whittaker, PhD, Childhood Psychology.

We wandered a bit more amongst the venerable headstones, each putting on a show of righteous indignation in order to save face. Mercifully our attention was soon captured by a small flock of crows in the treetops of a small patch of first-growth woods. Some people find Corvids to be loud – raucous, even – but their cries are never offensive to my ears.

‘Ugh. Crows give me the creeps,' Alison said.

‘Not, me,' I said. ‘Crows, ravens, magpies – they all belong to a family of birds called Corvids. They're amongst the smartest animals that there are. Did you know that they have the ability to use tools?'

‘No way! Do you mean like chimpanzees do?'

‘Actually, their use of tools is even more sophisticated than that of chimpanzees. Also, sometimes they bring gifts to people who feed them.'

‘Gifts?' Alison asked, suddenly more interested. ‘Like what?'