The Death of Pie (22 page)

‘Is that so?' I said.

Agnes gave me a pitying look that was probably well-deserved. ‘You poor dear, and you call yourself an amateur detective? Just because Pastor Nate is so handsome, virile and rugged, and – uh – looks rather like Hugh Jackman, minus the wolverine claws, you think he's heterosexual?'

‘What about you, Agnes,' Doc said, sounding more than a mite miffed, ‘do you want to jump his bones?'

‘Why, Doc Shafor,' Agnes said, ‘I am shocked by your language! Need I remind you, fiancé of mine, that there's a child present?'

‘Hey,' Alison said, ‘how many times do I hafta remind ya that I ain't no child?'

‘
People
,' I said, ‘a word, if I may. Alison, you are a young woman, so act like one. Doc, I've made my peace with you loving Agnes; go for it. Agnes, your pastor is definitely
not
gay; so theoretically you
could
jump his bones. Now, what I wanted to say is this: Reverend Nathaniel Troyer, pastor of The First Mennonite Church of Hernia, Pennsylvania was carrying on a secret affair with the trollop who packed a wallop that sent our little village flying to bookshelves across America, and in the process exposed our foibles and made a mockery of our noble way of life.'

Both adults appeared stunned, whilst the teen's face lighted up with renewed interest. ‘Yeah? That's dope!' she said, using her latest dopey slang word. Then seeing my look of disapproval she added, ‘I mean, like, what's this world coming to anyway?'

When Alison trotted out that hackneyed phrase she'd learned from me, which has been used by adults from time
in memoriam
, we three grownups couldn't help but laugh. But for Agnes, the laughter was short-lived.

‘Magdalena,' she said, stretching as tall as she could, and thus no longer forming a near perfect sphere, ‘you better be darn well sure of this. You could be sued for libel.'

‘How well do you know your Bible?' I said. It was a rhetorical question: even liberal Mennonites, like Agnes, try to read through the entire Bible once a year.

‘Get to your point,' Agnes snarled.

‘My source was King Ahab himself.'

‘What? That doesn't make sense – unless you're trying to say that Pastor Nate is supposed to be King Ahab and Ramat Sreym is the wicked Queen Jezebel. Therefore it was Pastor Nate who told you this news himself.'

‘Bingo,' I said. ‘In fact, he told me down in his basement office, just off your social hall, with its delightful scents of tuna casserole and weak, decaffeinated coffee. I am quite certain that the word “bingo” has been uttered more than once down there.'

‘You are so vulgar!' Agnes's eyes burned with fury.

‘She meant the
game
,' Doc said.

‘Oh, well, still, she's trying to get my goat.' Agnes turned back to me, eyes still ablaze. ‘We're not Catholics; they're the ones who play Bingo. We're Mennonites; we
eat
.'

‘I didn't know that Auntie Agnes had a goat,' Alison said. ‘Why can't we have – oh, yeah, it's just an expression.'

‘Agnes,' Doc said, ‘it seems to me that you're inordinately bent out of shape by the thought of your pastor and Ramat having an affair. It sounds like you're taking it personally.'

My stout friend spun; it was like watching a top. ‘Of course I'm taking it personally. I feel betrayed. That woman ridiculed me in her book, and this man – my spiritual leader – was being intimate with her? And it's not just me; it is anyone else who might have come to him for premarital counselling, etc. – and meanwhile he was fornicating.
Forn
icating.'

‘There's that fancy word again,' Alison said.

‘Now,' I said, ‘please consider the following. Before most of us have actually read Ramat's ding-dong book, Sam asks her to be one of the judges for our historic annual apple pie contest. It was a brilliant move on her part to accept because, as you know, the Hernia Heritage Days Apple Festival lasts a week, with apple dunking, cider, sauces—'

‘Mags,' Doc said, ‘you usually mean well, but you're as long-winded as a Baptist preacher.'

‘Amen,' Agnes said.

I glowered kindly at her – so to speak. ‘Well, anyway, I think that it's entirely possible that Pastor Nate is the one who poisoned Miss Sreym. After all, she was sitting between him and Wanda Hemphopple on the judges' platform. The only reason that Toy didn't grill him like a weenie at the time is – well, because Toy is a Southern gentleman. In the South, the clergy are put on pedestals where they reign like demigods. Then every decade or so it seems they invariably give in to the sins of the flesh, or the temptations of the offering plate.'

Doc nodded. ‘Hmm. Why do you reckon that seems to be more of a Southern thing; those dramatic falls from Grace, followed by televised appeals of slobbering evangelists begging for forgiveness?'

‘I know!' Alison had her hand raised like she was in school, although I doubted that she ever raised it there.

‘Do tell, dear,' I said.

‘Because Southern women dress sexier, and that makes them prettier, just like that Ramat lady, who was some kind of beautiful.'

‘She was not!' Agnes said sharply.

I smiled at poor Alison, who looked as if she'd been slapped. ‘Anyway, Alison, you didn't address the issue of money. Why does it seem like more of the high-living, mega-church ministers live in the South?'

‘That's easy too,' my daughter sniffed. ‘It's the accent, see? It sounds much nicer to be asking folks to be coughing up money for God when ya sound just as poor as they is. But ya can't be begging for no money if ya sound like Pastor Nate. That don't sound right, ya see? I mean, why would ya give ya money to a college man?'

‘That kid has a good head on her shoulders,' Doc said.

‘Ya think so?' Alison said. She was beaming. ‘'Cause I got me another possible theory about who mighta killed that beautiful author lady.'

‘Is that so?' Doc said. I could tell that he was tempted to reach out and pat her on the head. ‘Who would that be?'

‘You, of course. You,
and
Auntie Agnes.'

‘Alison!' I was genuinely shocked at her bringing Agnes into this.

‘Mom, don't look so fierce! You was saying to Dad that Uncle Doc and that gorgeous foreign lady had themselves a roll in the haystack.'

‘I said no such thing!'

Tears immediately spilled from Alison's eyes. ‘Mom, there's no need to make a liar out of me just because you're embarrassed about what you said. Auntie Agnes, go ahead and ask Uncle Doc if he thinks I'm a big fat liar, like my mother wants you to believe.'

At that point, it is doubtful that Agnes even heard her, so focused was she on Doc. Most certainly, Agnes was not paying attention to Alison's shifting grammar.

‘
Snickerdoodle
,' Agnes said, ‘did you sleep with that two-bit tramp of an author?'

Doc appeared genuinely rattled, I'll grant him that. ‘Two-
bit
?' he rasped. ‘Do you think that is all that she cost me? Just two bits? She demanded that I take her to Smokin' Joe's Steak House up the highway in Bedford, and then shell out $11.95
each
for a proper steak meal with all the trimmings. Each! And that is not including gratuity. I'm telling you, those people on the other side of the Pond, don't know how lucky they have it not having to tip wait staff.'

Despite her impeccable Mennonite-Amish lineage, I thought Agnes was going to haul off and punch Doc so hard that he'd be forever planted on the surface of the moon, along with an American flag and some famous foot prints. Instead, her voice raised another octave as she swivelled back to face Alison, her accuser.

‘I can see why you might think that
he
is guilty, given how low he can stoop, but why do you paint me with the same brush?'

‘Huh?' Alison said.

‘She means,' I said, ‘why do you put her in the same category as Uncle Doc?'

Alison responded first with a very loud, and long, belch. She was, after all, just a young teenager who had stuffed her face with pie. While I do wish that she hadn't behaved in this manner, neither was I mortified, as perhaps someone thought I should be.

‘Well, say something to her,' Agnes directed me, after a minute or so had elapsed.

‘Alison, please answer Auntie Agnes's question: why do you think that she could be guilty as well?'

‘Not
that
question,' my friend said, and angrily stamped a foot.

I nodded. ‘OK, then, let me try again. Alison, what is the capital of Oklahoma?'

‘Oklahoma City,' she said proudly. State capitals were something we'd worked on together when she first came to stay with us.

This answer was correct, but not what Agnes wanted, and that fact incensed her. An incensed Agnes is a fearsome beast – not one to be trifled with. My Alison, however, unlike me, is not a coward, and does not back down from a position she has taken when she knows that she is right.

‘You can get as mad at me as you want, Auntie Agnes, but ya should be getting mad at Uncle Doc and my mom. They're both lying to ya. If ya don't believe me about Uncle Doc, just look in them beady eyes of his, and ya can always tell when my mom is lying because she sticks a finger under that silly bun on the back of her head and starts scratching something fierce.'

I yanked my finger out of my bun so quickly that I ripped my nail on a bobby pin. ‘I do not do that!' I wailed.

‘Anyway,' Alison said, ‘all I know is that she did say that Uncle Doc and that gorgeous dead woman was dating for a time. This makes me think that maybe you wanted her dead, so that she was out of way, and then you could date this old man.'

‘Why, you little imp!' Agnes cried.

‘No ma'am,' Alison said. ‘Both my legs work just fine; I don't limp at all. Now it could be that you is innocent, and it was Uncle Doc who wanted the beautiful writer lady dead so that he could date you, but that don't exactly make sense now, do it?'

‘
What?
' Agnes said.

‘What I mean is: why would he give up a chocolate cake for a piece of broccoli? Even if he did, ain't no jury gonna buy that.'

Dear, sweet Agnes. She was a smart cookie – uh – floret of broccoli, and as such, immediately understood Alison's analogy. She is also, essentially, a kind, Christian woman, and I could see her attempt to swallow her irritation until I thought sure that the poor dear was going to explode like an overfilled balloon.

Then suddenly, much to my horror, it occurred to me that Alison had a valid point. The Bible extols the wisdom of babes, and whilst my daughter was a mite beyond that age – perhaps even capable of producing her own babe – I would do well to give her views more credence. Especially when they made sense.

‘I don't think that either of you are capable of murder,' I said carefully. ‘Oops, let me start over,' I said even more carefully. ‘I know for a
fact
that neither of you are capable of murder. Doc, when you were a practicing vet and had to put down one of my cows, I saw you weeping.'

‘That was sweat running into my eyes,' Doc growled. ‘I'd been up all night trying to help the darn calf survive its birth.'

I laughed pleasantly. ‘Sweat, tears – they're both salty liquids, right? And you, Agnes, have trouble stepping on ants. Try denying that!'

Agnes gave a long, exasperated sigh, which thankfully deflated an otherwise dangerous situation. ‘Magdalena, I have trouble stepping on ants because I have trouble seeing them. I've been putting off seeing my optometrist for far too long.'

‘Nevertheless,' I said, ‘can we agree that if the two of you were to be suddenly extracted from this scenario – excised if you will, by a giant pair of scissors – and another pair of players inserted in your stead, that these new players would be suspect?'

‘I most certainly would not agree!' Agnes snorted. ‘To do so would be to admit to plausibility, and you ought to know, Magdalena, that my character is beyond reproach.'

‘You're treading on dangerous ground, Mags,' Doc growled.

‘Puh
-leaze
,' I said, ‘get it through your thick skull, Agnes; I can't conceive of you murdering anyone. I'm saying that to someone on the outside – to someone like Chief Toy, for instance – it could appear that you had a motive.'

‘Only if your little brat brings up her cockeyed theory in the first place.'

That did it; that raised my hackles like nobody's business. It raised them from my scrawny chicken legs up to my featherless armpits. Nothing gets this old crone's juices going like a direct attack on her children.

‘Agnes Delores Miller,' I hissed, there being sufficient S's in her name to make it sibilant. ‘If you intend to remain my best friend, let me warn you, you are standing on perilously thin ice. If the ice starts to crack and push comes to shove, I'll push you off my ice floe and then give you an extra shove out to sea – if that's what it takes to keep Alison safe from drowning. Don't ever make me choose between my little seal cub and my best friend, the polar bear.'

‘
Brava
,' Doc said. ‘I find expanded metaphors to be downright sexy.'

‘That was really gross,' Alison said, ‘the way you spat all over me when you said Auntie Agnes's name.'

‘Polar bear?' Agnes raged. ‘Is
that
how you see me? Big, white and furry?'

I smiled noncommittally. ‘Hmm. More like fluffy than furry. Now, dear, let us take a page from our friends across the pond—'

‘Hold it right there,' Doc roared. ‘I've been a pretty good sport, considering your accusation, but now you want us to take a page from the Perpetually Pathetic Sisters in that sham convent across from you on Miller's Pond?'