by Tamar Myers
“I could have gotten you a diamond solitaire, but sapphire is your birthstone, and anyway, solitaires are too common. But you’re not, hon. Poor Diana never became queen, but you’re already queen of my heart.”
I found my tongue, just where I’d left it. “Stop it.”
“I was going to save it for your actual birthday—the chicken was more of a gag—but when you got so upset... Mags, hon, believe me. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. You mean everything to me.”
“Stop it,” I begged. “Pleeease.”
Gabe sighed. “You don’t like it. I knew I was taking a chance. Damn it—”
My arms when fully extended can reach from Hernia to Cleveland. I barely had to stretch to clamp one of my mitts over the Babester’s mug.
“I love it, Gabe! And I love you. But you’re making me cry. And Magdalena Portulacca Yoder does not like to cry in public.” I blinked back the tears, some of which had already escaped and fallen on the plastic menu.
“What’s going on?” a high-pitched voice demanded.
I turned my head. “Wanda!”
“Magdalena, are you trying to smother this man?”
I let my hand drop, “This is a private conversation, dear.”
“It didn’t look like no conversation to me. It looked like you were trying to smother him. And I won’t have that, because Doc here is one of my regulars.”
“Doc—I mean Gabe—gave me a ring.” I grabbed the velvet box and shoved it under her nose. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Wanda sniffed, as if the ring were supposed to emit a scent of some kind. “Got me one just like that for Mother’s Day from Janet. That’s my oldest.”
“I don’t think so, dear. This is almost as large as the one Princess Diana had—just not quite.”
“Looks the same as mine. Janet got it at a Service Merchandise over in Pittsburgh that went out of business. Paid two hundred dollars for it. Thinks a lot of her old mama, don’t she?”
I shook the box. “This cost more than two hundred dollars.”
“If you say so.”
“Gabe, tell her.”
“Tell her what, hon?”
“How much you paid for this.”
“Mags, you know that’s not right.”
“Ha,” Wanda said, as if Gabriel’s good manners were a victory for her.
“Where is your ring?” I asked.
“Too flashy for me, that’s what I told Janet. Made her take it back.”
“She returned it to a store that was going out of business?”
Wanda nodded, her beehive wobbling precariously. “Yup.”
“Let me guess, you had her donate the money to charity instead.”
Gabe grabbed the box from my right hand, and then he grabbed my left hand. That was a clever ploy, because it shut me right up. Without further ado, in front of Wanda Hemphopple, he slid his ring on the finger that had once worn Aaron Miller’s.
The new ring was much heavier than I expected. By comparison, Aaron Miller’s—now, that was a diamond that cost two hundred dollars—had felt like a Cracker Jack toy. I waved my hand so that the five-carat sapphire and eye-clean diamonds flashed in the restaurant’s poor light.
“Harrumph,” Hemphopple said. Wanda doesn’t usually wait on customers herself, but she pulled an order pad and a stubby pencil from the pocket of her apron. “Youse ready to order?”
“I am,” Gabe said, with more enthusiasm than was called for.
“Me too,” I said. “And then, Wanda, you and I need to chat.”
She grimaced. “Okay, so maybe my ring wasn’t as nice as yours, but you don’t need to brag.”
“I don’t want to talk to you about the ring, dear. I want to talk to you about Colonel Custard.”
“What about him?”
“He’s dead.”
Wanda looked like she’d eaten some of her own cooking. “Did you say dead?”
“As dead as the bacon I hope is on my plate in the next twenty minutes.” I didn’t mean to sound callous, but stress makes me ravenous, and at that moment I was more stressed than I’d been since my wedding night to Aaron. Who knew the Good Lord had such a bizarre sense of humor? Tab A into slot B, indeed!
Wanda patted her bun. It may have been just nervousness on her part, or it may have been a veiled threat of germ warfare.
“You saying I did it, Magdalena?”
“No. I’m just saying we need to talk.”
Her hand dropped to her side, the threat of annihilation over. “Let’s talk in the kitchen,” she said.
That, I soon learned, was a huge mistake.
14
While a word to the wise is usually sufficient, folks like me need reams of it. Allow me to try and save you some trouble: Never enter the kitchen of a commercial restaurant unless you are prepared to never eat in that establishment again.
The Sausage Barn’s kitchen looked like a herd of swine had exploded in it. Perhaps some weeks ago. Fortunately I wear sturdy Christian brogans with thick sensible soles. And since I am no slouch, I’m not in the habit of leaning against things.
Wanda read my mind. Frankly, it doesn’t take a whole lot of doing.
“Sometimes we get backed up. But I’ve hired a dishwasher for the evening shift. She should be in any minute.”
“Was the old one shanghaied by roaches?”
Wanda ignored my jibe. She has the irritating ability to shift gears faster than a NASCAR racer. “Tell me everything,” she demanded, as if she were in charge of the investigation.
“Well, he was shot in the head this morning—hey, I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking you the questions.”
“Says who? That worthless brother-in-law of yours?”
“Pretty strong words for a Mennonite, Wanda.”
“Yeah, well, there is nothing wrong with telling the truth.”
“Agreed. Now, dear, what were you doing today—say, between the hours of nine and two?”
“So you really think I am a suspect!”
“Everyone is a suspect, until proven innocent.” So maybe that is not the American way, but I didn’t have a hand in writing the Constitution.
“I was here of course.”
“Witnesses?”
“Your fiance out there for one. Came in at eight forty-five for a pecan waffle and, uh, a large OJ, coffee black—yeah, that’s all. Let’s see, then there were the Hershbergers—like to eat late, you know. Amanda ordered the Happy Farmer Platter, which I’m sure comes as no surprise, and Herbert just had poached eggs and toast—on Amanda’s orders, of course. I tell you, Magdalena, she keeps getting bigger while he keeps getting smaller. One of these nights she’s going to roll over on him and then you’ll have yourself another homicide to solve. Because believe you me, it won’t have been by accident.”
As fascinating as this information was, I had to put a stop to it. Wanda, I should have remembered, had a world-class memory when it came to gossip, and what better venue for collecting it than a small-town hangout? I decided to skip alibi and go straight to motive. A good segue was needed.
“You know I would never speak ill of the dead, Wanda, but you have to admit it was arrogant of an outsider to come here and want to virtually take over like he did.”
Perhaps Wanda had an auxiliary brain hidden in her bun. She was certainly quicker on her rubber-soled shoes than I gave her credit for.
“Your point, Magdalena, is to get me to agree that I wanted to see the colonel gone, right? Well, you know I did. I made that clear at the town meeting. In fact, I wanted him gone so bad that I tried to bribe him.”
“You what?”
Wanda fixed her eyes on mine, but she was clearly nervous. The beehive bobbled, but now that I knew it contained a miniature cerebellum and not the plague, I didn’t feel threatened.
“I tried to grease his palm.”
I glanced around me. “That shouldn’t have been hard.”
“Must you always make jokes, Magdalena?”
“Not always,” I said. “Not during church. But please, tell me about this bribe.”
“Well, the colonel came in one day a few months ago—”
“Et tu, Brutus?”
The brain in the bun seemed to have run out of battery power. “Magdalena, you know my name is Wanda, not Brutus.”
I smiled. “Sorry, I was having a senior moment. Wanda, what you’re saying is that you knew the colonel had been in town scouting around, and that his plans would ultimately destroy our way of life?”
“Why, yes—”
“And you didn’t give me a heads up?”
“But I did try to stop him with my bribe.”
“Ah yes, the bribe. How much was it for?”
“I didn’t offer him money,” she said hotly. “That would be wrong.”
I gasped. “Not your—I mean, Wanda, I know you belong to the First Mennonite Church, which is more liberal than mine, but even your bunch—” I gasped again. “It wasn’t the home run you offered him, was it?” Wanda’s right eyebrow shot up so high the bun tilted rakishly. “Magdalena, you’re even nuttier than they say.”
“I beg your pardon!” I gasped again. “Than who says?”
“Why, everyone. Mad as a hatter, they all say. What on earth is a hatter, Magdalena?”
A quick change of subject is the best way to preserve the appearance of wisdom. “Are you going to tell me what it is you offered him?”
“Food. All he could eat every time he was in town—which, between you and me, I hoped wasn’t very often. He never travels anywhere without that prissy cook of his and Goliath, his chauffeur. That chauffeur eats more than even Amanda Hershberger. Of course that prissy cook won’t touch a thing, except for black coffee. Too much fat, she says. Ha! If you ask me, she was in a snit about something, and it didn’t involve food.”
I stole another glance around me. The good news was that if the Board of Health didn’t shut down the Sausage Barn, the PennDutch need never worry. William Penn was a boy the last time Wanda had her skillets washed or her floor mopped. The bad news was that I was never going to be able to stomach eating here again. Not without a lobotomy.
“So,” I said, “the colonel turned your offer of food down, and that’s the end of it? Weren’t you seething with rage at the insult?”
“What insult would that be?” The auxiliary brain kicked in. “For your information, he loved my food. If I was going to kill anyone—which of course I never would—I’d have gone after that cook of his. Said my poached eggs were hard enough to break windows.”
I sighed. I am not a betting woman, but if I were, I’d agree to lick one of Wanda’s pots clean if she was guilty of the colonel’s murder.
“There’s nothing wrong with hard eggs, dear. That’s how to avoid salmonella.”
“That’s what I told her. So, Magdalena, are we all done here? Is the inquisition over?”
“Why, I never!”
“Except with the bigamist Aaron Miller.”
“That’s unfair, and you know it.”
Wanda’s smile was one of pure satisfaction. In the war of the wits, she’s been taken prisoner many times. This was her first victory that I can recall.
“If you’re serious about finding the colonel’s killer,” she said, now that she could afford to be helpful, “you’ll find him less than a mile down the road.”
“Excuse me?”
“Magdalena, Magdalena, and I thought you were always the bright one. Always raising those huge hands of yours at school whenever the teacher asked for volunteers.”
I hadn’t known all the answers back then, but I wasn’t about to admit it now. As a schoolgirl, I’d been acutely aware of image. I learned that by waving my arm whenever a question was asked, even the teacher became convinced I knew the material. Of course half the time I didn’t.
“Wanda, dear, just cut to the chase. If you know the killer’s name, spit it out.”
Now that she had some power, she was every bit as reluctant to give it up as Strom Thurmond. “Remember when the county was talking about burying the power lines along Route 96, on account of in the wintertime a lot of folks were sliding into the poles?”
“Yes, but they didn’t bury the lines. Too many people objected to the assessment fees.”
“Correct. But who objected the loudest?”
“Wanda, the most handsome man on earth is waiting out there”—I pointed to the dining room—“in a plastic jungle. Or have you forgotten?”
“How could I forget, Magdalena? Your ring is blinding me—although I still say the one my daughter gave me was every bit as good. Anyway, the guy you’re after, the one who objected the loudest to burying the power lines, was that reverend friend of yours.”
“You mean Reverend Richard Nixon? Spiritual leader of the church with the thirty-two names? Looks a little bit like Abe Lincoln, only ganglier?”
“Haven’t wasted my time counting them names, Magdalena, but he’s the one I mean. And do you know why he objected, and why he killed the colonel?”
I shook my head. “Do tell.”
“Because that church is built illegally right on the easement,” she said. “If this so-called progress comes to Hernia and the road gets widened, that little fact is sure to be discovered. Then it’s curtains for the church with all them names, because they won’t be able to afford to relocate.”
“You sure about the easement? How do you know?”
There are few things worse than triumphant grins on other people’s faces. “Because business is so good here, I want to expand.” She paused long enough to see the effect that would have on me. When all she got was a face suitable for Mount Rushmore, she scowled. “Well, anyway, the zoning board turned me down. Said I was already as close to the highway as I could legally get. Which got me to thinking—I’m not nearly as close to the road as that little church. In fact, I went down to the courthouse and researched their plot. Sure enough, the church is over the line.”
“You didn’t turn them in, did you?” Reverend Nixon’s theology was not my cup of thee, but he and his bunch meant well.
“Of course I didn’t turn them in. What kind of woman do you think I am?”
“A bitch.”
I whirled. Gabe was standing in the door, trying to restrain a very large dog that was determined to push its way into the kitchen.
“She’s obviously pregnant,” he said. “Followed this couple in and headed straight back here.”
Wanda didn’t seem the least bit surprised. “Daisy, go home!”
“Is that your new dishwasher?” I asked innocently. Gabe had the good sense to grab me by the arm and whisk me back to the safety of our plastic bower.
The Babester ate a full, saturated supper, while I opted for a liquid repast. Orange juice—bottled orange juice.
“The human stomach was designed to take a lot of punishment,” he said, and shoveled a forkful of hash browns into his mouth.
“There are limits to everything,” I said, “and that kitchen is beyond the pale.”
“You obviously didn’t share a bachelor’s pad in medical school. Hon, do you think she might be on to something? About the reverend, I mean. I’ve only met him a few times, but he seems like a stand-up guy to me.”
“Anything is possible, dear. But I agree. If Richard Nixon is guilty of the colonel’s murder I’ll eat my—”
“Birthday dinner here?”
I was going to say “hat,” but since I don’t own one, I was willing to eat my prayer cap. It’s made of organza and is light and airy, if somewhat chewy. Besides, a good ranch dressing makes anything palatable—why else do the English insist on their daily quota of leaves? Leafy greens, they prefer to call them, but a leaf is a leaf, and without ranch dressing, they are best left up to giraffes.
“Okay, I’ll eat here—but only if I’m wrong. If it’s somebody else, I get to pick.”
“Deal. Hon, I was thinking, it’s going to be little spooky for you tonight at the inn, right? I mean,
Alison’s over at Freni’s, and it’s going to be just you and those two characters from a Mel Brooks movie.”
I knew where this was going. Gabriel is a complete gentleman, but as straight as an airport runway. I take it as a compliment that from time to time he asks me to spend the night, even when he knows the answer is a standing, and resounding, “No.”
“I’m flattered, dear,” I said, “but I’ll be just fine. Besides, I’ve got Grandma Yoder’s ghost to watch over me.”
Gabe grunted. Most Mennonites don’t subscribe to the idea of ghosts, and neither does my Jewish beau. But I know from personal experience that Papa’s mama, who died in an upstairs bedroom, is still around, trying to run the house with a spectral fist. I have seen her on three occasions, and each time she looked just as imposing as she had in life. If the colonel’s weird staff tried to harm me, I had no doubt that Granny Yoder would send them packing. Why she didn’t stop whoever it was from killing the colonel in the first place, thereby saving me a peck of trouble, is beyond me. When I die—if I have the nerve—perhaps I’ll ask her.
“You need me,” Gabe said as he stood to leave, “just call. And by all means, hon, don’t take any chances.”
“Chances?”
“Mags, there’s no predicting what you will do. That’s one of the things I love about you. But this time I mean it. And promise me you’re going directly home from here.”
“I promise.”
“Tell you what, you drive first and I’ll follow.”
I am not a child, and though he meant well, my bun bristled. “I’ll follow you. I might get lost otherwise.”
“Yeah, right. Like you haven’t been up and down that road just about every day of your life.”
In the end he conceded, and led the way out of the parking lot. I followed faithfully for a few yards, but then opportunity knocked. I would have been an idiot not to answer the door.
15
Blood Orange Custard
This is an adaptation of a little-known Catalan dessert called Millasons.
1½ teaspoons unsalted butter
2 large eggs