Gruel and Unusual Punishment Read online

  "Six months," I heard myself say. "That's what I'll aim for. But if I can't handle the job, I'm sending her right back. And you pay any damages she incurs. You got that?"

  I could feel his sigh of relief wafting through the tiny holes on my receiver. "Magdalena, you're a real peach, you know that?" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Sometimes I wish you and I—"

  "Stop right there!"

  "Sorry." He paused. "Look, I've got all her stuff here, and the papers you need to sign. Do you want me to drop them off, or do you want to swing by here?"

  That was a hard choice. Did I want to see my ex-Pooky Bear at my house, where I'd been blissfully, although unlawfully, married for a month, or did I want to visit the motel where he was holed up with his real wife? It was a choice I couldn't make.

  "You know where Susannah and Melvin live?"

  He didn't. I gave him directions and told him to drop everything pertaining to Alison at my sister's house. Then, rather than giving him my best pithy parting shot, I simply hung up.

  I confess. For the next couple of minutes I stayed in my room, replaying in my mind some of the highlights of being Mrs. Aaron Miller—albeit a bogus one. They say beauty is only skin deep, but if that's the case, then Aaron has the epidermis of an elephant. Unfortunately, he has the soul of a snake, and I really was better off without him. Still, it was fun to imagine what might have been, and what could still be, if I had remained married to that magnificent Miller.

  I was planning our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party when my reverie was interrupted by a loud knock on the bedroom door. Knuckles that hard could only belong to Freni.

  "I'll be out in a minute, dear."

  "Yoder!"

  I put my pillow over my head. I should have known that praying mantises had hard knuckles too. The door was locked, thank heavens. Perhaps if I ignored him, he'd eventually wander off in search of other prey.

  "Yoder, I need to speak to you."

  "Go away," I yelled. "I'm indecent."

  That should have been enough to put off any man, but of course not Melvin. "Yoder, this is very important. I have to speak to you right away."

  "In that case I'll have to open the door naked," I said, just to make sure he'd understood.

  "I don't give a damn what you're wearing, Yoder. Just open the door."

  I sighed. I was, of course, fully clothed. And of course I would never allow a man to see me naked. Only God, Aaron, and my doctor have had that privilege. So far God's made no comment. Aaron, of course, bolted. As for Dr. Simonson, he announced his retirement a month after my last visit.

  Reluctantly I opened the door. Melvin looked worse than I'd ever seen him. Both eyes were focused right- on me, and he was trembling.

  "What's wrong, dear?"

  That's when Melvin began to cry.

  5 - The Lethal Gruel (Shrimp 'n Grits) Freni Served

  1 ½ cups peeled raw shrimp

  ½ lemon

  salt and cayenne pepper to taste

  1 cup chicken or vegetable broth (canned will do)

  2 tablespoons flour

  1 tablespoon ketchup

  1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

  1 small onion finely chopped

  2 teaspoons chopped green bell pepper

  3 tablespoons bacon grease

  Basic Boiled Grits

  arsenic to taste1

  Season raw shrimp with lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper and set aside. Add broth to flour in small bowl, a few drops at a time, stirring constantly until a smooth paste is formed. Continue to stir in remaining broth, ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce and set aside.

  Sauté onion and chopped bell pepper in bacon grease until onion begins to turn translucent. Add shrimp and cook two more minutes. Slowly add flour mixture until desired amount and consistency of sauce is reached.

  Immediately serve over Basic Boiled Grits (see the recipe in Chapter Ten), or grits that have been cooked according to package directions.

  Serves 4

  6

  I was astounded. I honestly didn't think Melvin had it in him to cry, and I'm not referring to all my jibes about him being an insect, either. As long as I've known him, the man—and I still use that term loosely—has never exhibited a vulnerable side. Sure, he's been needy, but that's not the same as vulnerable. Melvin has begged for my help on occasions too numerous to mention, but I always had the impression that if I turned him down, he would somehow survive. Of course, I'd pay dearly for my decision. That was a given. This time, however, was different.

  Hugging him was out of the question. For both of us. Instead, I pointed to the simple maple chair beside my vanity.

  "Have a seat."

  Vulnerable or not, Melvin sat on the bed. "Yoder, I know you're a practicing Mennonite—deeply religious—so you can't take an oath. But I still need you to swear to something."

  "Consider it done," I said. I'm sure you'll agree that's not the same as actually swearing.

  "Thanks, Yoder. You got a tissue?"

  I handed him a box of the generic type I buy at the I.G.A. over in Bedford. You can't hang on to your wealth if you're addicted to brand names, you know.

  Melvin honked like a Canada goose. "God, this stuff is rough!"

  "No taking the Lord's name in vain, Melvin," I said evenly. "I don't care what your problem is, I won't stand for it in my House."

  "Who said I had a problem?" He blew again.

  Melvin always does this. He begs for my help, and then as soon as I agree, he gets cocky. However, I was surprised at how fast he rebounded in this instance. Perhaps I'd misread him.

  "You've been bawling like a baby," I said, not unkindly. "Your nose is red and your eyes look like peppermint hard candies—only not as big, of course. So, either you have a problem and I help you, or you're out of here. You can't have it both ways."

  The gates to Niagara opened again. This time he blubbered aloud. He was truly devastated about something. I thought of at least patting him on the back, but twenty-five generations of in- bred Swiss ancestors made that an impossibility. Besides, Melvin was Swiss too. What he needed was a little direction.

  "Move to the chair, dear. You're staining my bedspread."

  Melvin gratefully moved.

  "Now, honk again a few times, and tell Auntie Magdalena what this is all about."

  If his nose had been the three little pigs' house, there would be nothing left of it today. He went through half a box of tissues, which even at generic prices is rather extravagant for something that just gets thrown away.

  Finally he got it together enough to speak. "You see, Yoder, the Clarence Webber case is a little more complicated than I let on."

  "Oh, my stars! You killed him, didn't you?"

  Melvin recovered just long enough to give me a snotty sneer. "No."

  "Then what is it?" I would have shaken the daylights out of him, but his eyes were welling up again.

  "You know that call I got from the coroner?"

  "Yes. Go on."

  "Well, that arsenic part—"

  "Wasn't true?" Never mind stains on my dress, I was going to shake the mantis like a can of paint at Home Depot.

  "Yes, it's true!" he cried before my knobby fingers could close around his bony neck. "But there's more."

  I backed off. "Tell me everything this time."

  "Well, you see, Yoder, the coroner just called back claiming to have some evidence that Clarence Webber was—uh—I don't know how else to say this—tortured."

  "Tortured?"

  "He was whipped. With something thin, and probably metal."

  "Like a wire coat hanger?"

  "Thinner than that. Like maybe a guitar string. Anyway, his back and even his legs were covered with scars, and a whole lot of marks that were pretty fresh."

  "How fresh?"

  "Maybe less than a week old. But you got to believe me, Magdalena, I didn't do it."

  I bel
ieved him. The mantis is as irritating as sand in a wet bathing suit, but cruelty is not his shtick. I've known the man since he was born. While some little boys I knew would deliberately pull the wings off flies, Melvin would affix the appendages back on with super glue. Then he'd try to have the boys arrested.

  "Zelda?" I didn't know her as well. I couldn't imagine her doing such a thing, but I didn't want to be one of those people who said about the mass murderer living next door, "He seemed like such a nice young fellow."

  Melvin emitted a low moan. "I don't know, Yoder. Sure, she was alone with him a lot, but the coroner said that most of the marks were healed. Old scars."

  "That's using your noggin," I said encouragingly. "Zelda told me Clarence had four regular visitors. Maybe one of them is responsible for those scars. But what I don't get is, why would he have those scars in the first place? Why would one person whip another with a guitar string?"

  Melvin gave me the same look half my seventh-grade health class gave me when I read my paper on human reproduction aloud. I knew where babies came from, I was just a little confused about how they got there. In her mother-to-daughter talk with me, Mama had gone on and on about how fathers gave mothers seeds, that then magically—well, at least in my eyes—grew into babies. I still think it was logical for me to assume that Papa bought his seed at Miller's Feed Store. That's where we got our best planting com and onion sets.

  "Yoder," Melvin said, with just a hint of superiority, "it's a sexual thing."

  "Get out of town!" I was incredulous. The mere act is torture enough, without having to involve guitar strings.

  Melvin nodded, no doubt enjoying my discomfort. "It's called S and M. Some people find pain stimulating." Then, probably remembering he was married to my sister, he quickly added, "But not me, of course."

  I was shocked into silence.

  "So you see, Yoder, I can't let something like this get out. Especially not if any of it happened in my jail. Dave—that's the coroner—has promised to sit on this for a while, but it will eventually leak out. When it does, Yoder, unless I can prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that it didn't happen on my turf—well, there goes the election."

  He was right, of course. Hernia is the buckle on the belt of American conservatism.

  "My lips are sealed, and I'll certainly do what I can to help."

  "That's good, Yoder, because if I lose the election, Susannah and I will have to move in here with you."

  "You most certainly will not!"

  Melvin's left eye spun as if it were in a Bingo tumbler. "I'm running against the mayor who gave me my job, remember? Win or lose, Hernia P.D. is behind me."

  "Maybe, but your mother's farm is in front of you. She could use your help, and she has lots more room than I."

  "Yoder, she's eighty-three. I can't be imposing on her."

  It was useless to argue. He'd made his point. Unless I cleared him of any suspicion in the death of Clarence Webber, my life was going to change yet again. As if becoming a mama overnight wasn't enough.

  I stood. "Don't worry, I'll get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, you campaign like crazy."

  "Thanks, Yoder." He stood, and then, in a gesture that shocked me more than anything yet that day, gave me a hug.

  Imagine, if you will, being hugged by a five-foot-eight-inch lobster. When Melvin pressed me to his bony carapace, it was all I could do to keep from screaming. Of course I was touched emotionally, don't get me wrong, but the "ick factor," as Susannah would say, was way off the charts.

  What if you detested liver, and then found yourself licking a giant, liver-flavored ice-cream cone? You'd be grossed out too. After Melvin left—all smiles by the way—I consoled myself by playing with my pussy.

  My pussy is a purebred chocolate-point Siamese, a gift from Gabe the Babe across the road. When Dr. Gabriel Rosen first gave the cat to me, she was a tiny kitten, small enough to curl up in the cozy confines of my bra. But Little Freni grew at warp speed, and soon even the biggest bra I could find at the Wal-Mart over in Bedford was not large enough to hold the three of us, if you get my drift. Besides, I didn't have the heart to declaw her.

  Lately my sweet pussy has taken to spending her days sleeping under my quilt, next to my pillow. She'd been in the room all along, and during Melvin's impromptu visit had not uttered as much as a muffled meow. But as soon as the door closed behind my brother- in-law, dear Little Freni crawled from beneath the covers, stretched, yawned, and climbed onto my lap.

  "You know," I said, as I stroked her sleek short fur, "I really should think about retiring. I have all the money I'll ever need. I should sell this place—maybe even just give it to Susannah and Melvin—and move somewhere far away. Sarasota, Florida, has a large Mennonite community. If I move all the way down there..." I stopped. Unless Gabe moved to Florida as well, I didn't want to go. What use was Eden without an Adam to enjoy it with?

  Little Freni purred contentedly.

  "Besides," I said, "I'm a mother now. I can't just—"

  The door to my room slammed open, and Little Freni sprang from my lap like a jack-in-the-box and dived under the bed. I shrieked with pain. The little beast could disembowel an antelope just as easily as a lion could.

  "Hey lady, you got anything to eat in this house?"

  I glared at the girl. "You may not enter without knocking. And then only when I tell you it's all right. Is that clear?"

  She glared back, but said nothing.

  "Look, Alison, if we're going to get along, you need to understand that I'm the boss here. This is my house. If you can't follow my rules, this whole thing isn't going to work. But just so you know, living here will be a piece of cake compared to any girls' detention center."

  She rolled her eyes until both irises disappeared. "Hey, no need to get so bent out of shape. I get the picture. So, you got anything to eat around here, or not?"

  "There's plenty of food in the kitchen." I glanced at my watch. It was ten-thirty. At the PennDutch, breakfast is served promptly at seven, lunch at noon, and supper at six. Snacks in between are discouraged, although I do keep fresh fruit and vegetables for dipping on hand at all times. Freni, who has a weakness for baking, stocks a huge molasses jar with cookies, as those guests who are in favor with her are eventually informed. "Did you check with Mrs. Hostetler?"

  "Man, she tried to give me some stupid old cookies. And milk! Don't you have any nachos? Or at least any chips?"

  I couldn't help but smile. Rearing a child this young was going to be a breeze. For shame on Aaron Miller and his floozy of a wife for giving up so easily. Chips? Nachos? Was that all the hoopla was about? Teenage rebellion, indeed.

  "I'm going into Bedford this afternoon, dear. I'll bring you back a variety of snacks. And pop. What sort of soda pop do you prefer?"

  Alison made a face. "Pop is for kids. Get me some beer."

  I laughed politely at the joke. "In your dreams, dear."

  "None of that cheap stuff, either. I like Budweiser."

  I gently propelled the child from my room, and locked the door behind us. "Now be a good girl and go scrub off that makeup. Lose the tongue jewelry too. And the eyebrow ring. In fact, lose it all, except for two of the earrings. That's being plenty generous if you ask me. A girl your age doesn't need to adorn herself."

  Quite frankly, I've never understood the public's penchant for piercing. The Good Lord gave the human body more than enough openings, for crying out loud. Why anyone would intentionally add more is beyond me.

  Apparently it was my turn to shock Alison, because she looked at me much the way I must have looked at Granny Yoder's ghost the day I saw her standing on the stairs. I gave Alison a slight push toward the kitchen.

  "Tell Mrs. Hostetler I said you could have a cookie or two after you've cleaned up. Now, if you'll excuse me, dear, I have to go put my John Hancock on those papers your parents want me to sign."

  I left her standing in the hall with her mouth open wi
de enough to catch a swarm of bees.

  Susannah and Melvin live in a modest aluminum house on the south side of Hernia, as far away from me as one can get and still reside within the town limits. This is a new neighborhood of blue- collar folks, and bears the lofty but nonsensical name of Foxcroft. In my dictionary a croft is either a small enclosed field adjoining a house, or a small farm worked by tenants. It has nothing to do with rows of identical homes on postage-stamp lots.

  As usual, it took me forever to find the right house. All the streets have foxy names, and her number, 66, is so small one needs a pair of good binoculars to spot it from the street. Alas, I'd neglected to bring my pair with me. I made two complete circuits each of Foxhaven, Foxmoor, and Foxmoss before spotting a telltale strip of red at one of the windows. Susannah's living room drapes are the color of fresh blood, and the neighborhood association made her line them with white. But Susannah, being who she is, keeps one edge turned outward, so that a sliver of red shows—if you are approaching from the right direction. This is not just an act of defiance, but helps Melvin and Susannah find their home as well.

  I parked on the still unstained concrete driveway beside a maple not large enough to shade a grasshopper. Before I could even get my seat belt unbuckled, my sister was beside the car and rapping sharply at the window. I pressed the automatic button and nearly got a fist in my face.

  "Easy, girl. I'm getting out as fast as I can."

  "Oh, Mags," she cried, "you're not going to believe what just happened!"

  7

  I grabbed my sister by her bony shoulders. "What happened?"

  "Your studmuffins was just here!"

  "Aaron's not my studmuffins! Gabriel Rosen is my—oh, never mind. Is that it?"

  "Isn't that enough? Man, is he ever dreamy. He hasn't changed one bit."