Snoop to Nuts (24 page)

Everybody looked around but there was no Eula to be found.

“You want help, Hawley? Before it’s too late?” Meemaw asked.

He nodded again.

“Then tell these folks what I’m getting even with you for.”

“Poisoning . . . pastor.”

Miss Amelia rocked back on her heels. “You mean that was you? You’re the one dug up that spotted water hemlock, ground it up, and put it in my caviar?”

He nodded fast then gestured toward his throat.

“You’re the one stealing from these good people around you here?”

Only his eyes moved from one side to the other. He hesitated.

Miss Amelia said, “Antidote, Hawley. Keep thinking ‘antidote.’”

She made as if to walk away.

He croaked out, “I’m . . . stealing. Help . . .”

“And you’re leaving right after the ceremony, is that right? With all the good folks’ money and that Jeffrey Coulter, who helped you cook this up when he first came to Riverville a few years ago? Am I right on this?”

“Please . . .”

“Tell me.”

“Yes . . .” He sank to his knees, looking like a man inches away from the grim reaper.

Miss Amelia turned around to Hunter and demanded, “You get that?”

Hunter held up a tape recorder.

She turned to me. I held up the phone I’d been recording on.

A few of us cheered in earnest as poor Hawley crept over to pull on Miss Amelia’s skirt hem. He raised his hands in supplication. She smiled down at him.

“Don’t worry, Hawley.” She patted his cheek. “It’s only alum. Puckers your mouth awhile is all. You’ll live. At least until the state of Texas gets ahold of you.”

In late October there was another ground breaking at the Rushing to Calvary Independent Church. This one was more subdued, and cooler, with the temperature in the low eighties. The new minister, Pastor Joel Highborn, a Texan out of Houston, officiated, thanking all the generous folks for their contributions to what was a much smaller, more practical, addition to the church.

“This one won’t be making us feel like tiny people when we walk in,” Ethelred was the first to note. She added that it was her way of giving thanks that the thyroid had no cancer attached and all she had to do was take pills for the rest of her life, which was bad but not considering the alternative.

Ethelred had the best reason in the world to be first to comment on the new plans. She’d led the charge to raise funds, improve their church, and have a place where the ladies could have bake sales and raise even more money for good works.

The thing was, even though everybody in the investment club was offered all their money back from the suitcases found at Hawley Harvey’s house and in his stripped-down office (where Eula, ever the devoted wife, was caught trying to haul one of the suitcases out to her car), every single soul decided to tithe ten to twenty percent of their funds to build a more modest addition on to the little white church. Along with millions of dollars in suitcases, the sheriff had found Jeffrey Coulter, who’d been hanging around town, waiting to flee with Hawley Harvey.

It was all everybody in town talked about for a month or so, how Jeffrey Coulter’s father, the New York financier, was behind the whole scheme and how the scandal that started in Riverville, Texas, swept all the way to New York City, which seemed to give the whole business a juicy edge to certain folks in Riverville. Folks like Freda Cromwell, who didn’t exactly apologize to Miss Amelia for the things she’d said about her, but did say she hoped it would never happen again in her lifetime.

Mayor Shirley Craig showed up at the scaled-back ground breaking to praise the people of the church for their steadfast goodness in the face of a terrible scourge. Even the governor of Texas helicoptered in for a photo op, then out so fast a lot of people were just beginning to whisper he was there when he wasn’t.

The blueprint stuck up on the easel this time showed one big open space, two small lavatories, and a kitchen area at the back. No grandiose lighting designs. No stage with elaborate curtains and elevators so a preacher could come up out of the floor amid a swirl of phony smoke—which always seemed to be like coming up from hell to me—but I guess Hawley didn’t think it out that far since it was all a trick anyway.

Miss Amelia and I left the church grounds early to set up at the Nut House for the crowd that was coming for tea and tarts afterward. Miss Amelia had been adamant about doing the whole thing herself, saying she had surprises in mind to celebrate the glorious day, and called on all of us Blanchards to help out though Justin and Bethany grumbled about not being happy with some of the folks in town and the way they’d believed the worst about Miss Amelia. But Meemaw, ever herself, told them to get over it.

“Why, I’d believe an old lady could make Texas caviar and throw a little hemlock into her mix for good measure, if I didn’t know the little old lady in question,” she said and brushed away any residual anger any of us were feeling.

Back at the store, Justin, and Hunter, who’d offered to help but mostly hung around me, pushed displays out of the way to open the center of the floor for tables that would hold platter after platter of wonderful things Miss Amelia and Treenie Menendez had whipped up, with the scents coming up into my apartment driving me crazy all week long.

Pastor Albertson was back in town to speak at the ceremony and to give his seal of approval to the new pastor, who was young and earnest and blinked a lot though nobody was calling him Blinky behind his back. Though that would come as people learned to love him. Pastor Albertson was one of the first to walk through the door of the Nut House, greeting everybody with a blessing on the store and all who labored therein.

When Miss Amelia lined us up and handed us platters of food to pass, we gasped and then snickered at what each was called.

When I got a platter of Toxic Tassies, I thought I’d heard wrong, but Miss Amelia swiftly nodded and frowned, stopping my laughter dead. She set a little engraved card with the treat’s name on it directly at the center of my platter. She gave a firm nod and went on to the platter Mama held.

Mama’s platter of luscious-looking small cookies got a Nightshade Nuggets sign.

By the time she got to Bethany’s Spotted Hemmies, we were all laughing so hard our platters shook.

Hunter got Strychly Stacks, Meemaw’s version of old-fashioned stack cake cut into narrow slices. This one made everybody groan and brought Mama to ask, nervously, if this was in good taste. “Considering . . .”

Meemaw’s face scrunched into disapproval.

“Young lady, I’m doing what Texans always do, making fun of the evil that came amongst us and was vanquished.” She raised a stiff finger heavenward. “In the spirit of the Alamo, where our men fought to the death; in the spirit of the cotton pickers of 1896. For Andrew Jackson and Mance Lipscomb. And for that warrior, Audie Murphy—I’m doing what I have to do. I’m not disrespecting anybody. I’m laughing at what was done to me.”

She handed Justin a huge platter of cinnamon buns named Cyanide Cinnies.

But she’d saved the best for last. Her own platter held colorful mounds of black-eyed peas and cut-up tomatoes and jalapeños and peppers on small, crisp toasts. “Socrates’ Favorite Texas Caviar,” her card read. She planted it directly at the center of the plate then proudly held her platter out as the people of Riverville came in, led by a triumphant Ethelred Tomroy.

Although Miss Amelia doesn’t see anything funny about being poisoned, or being blamed for poisoning anyone, she does have a sense of humor and introduced these specialties at the Nut House for one day only.

TOXIC TASSIES

Lovely little cups of goodness for any tea party.

DOUGH

1 (3-oz.) package cream cheese, softened

½ cup butter

1 cup sifted flour

FILLING

¾ cup brown sugar

1 tbsp. soft butter

1 egg

dash salt

1 tbsp. Garrison Brothers Texas Straight Bourbon

⅔ cup broken pecans for dough cups

Blend the cream cheese, butter, and sifted flour. Chill and shape into 2 dozen 1-inch balls. Press into ungreased 1¾-inch muffin cups—bottom and sides.

Beat together the brown sugar, butter, egg, salt, and bourbon.

Divide half of the pecans among the dough cups. Pour filling mix into each cup. Top with the remaining pecans.

Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes or until set.

Cool and remove from the muffin cups.

NIGHTSHADE NUGGETS

A nice touch of orange and pecan in an easy-to-make cookie.

1 cup shortening

½ cup white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg, well beaten

2 tbsp. Garrison Brothers Texas Straight Bourbon

1 tbsp. grated orange rind

2¾ cups flour

¼ tsp. soda

¼ tsp. salt

½ cup pecans, finely chopped

Cream together the shortening, sugars, egg, bourbon, and orange rind. Sift the flour with soda and salt. Add to the creamed mix. Stir in the pecans. Shape into a roll about 1½ inches around. Chill. Cut into thin slices, place on a greased cookie sheet, bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Yields about 5 dozen cookies.

SPOTTED HEMMIES

Great icebreakers for parties. Have your guests guess what the heck’s in the dish anyway! A Thanksgiving favorite at the Rancho en al Colorado.

1 large orange, chopped

1 medium apple, chopped

½ medium-sized white onion, diced

2 whole cups cranberries

¼ cup Garrison Brothers Texas Straight Bourbon

¼ cup water

1 (16-oz.) can jellied cranberry sauce

½ cup sugar

½ tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. nutmeg

½ tsp. allspice

crackers

chopped pecans

bacon bits

Put the orange, apple, onion, cranberries, bourbon, water, cranberry sauce, sugar, and spices into a pan and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer until mixture thickens—30 to 35 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Served chilled on crackers with chopped pecans and bacon bits sprinkled on top.