Death by Deep Dish Pie (16 page)

For that, I sincerely thanked them. Uncle Otis was going to need all the prayers he could get

In between these little visits, I glanced at the shops on Main Street—mostly second-hand shops like Trash to Treasure or antique shops like Rayanne's Relics, with a few other stores in between—Cherry's Chat N Curl, Leftover Electronics (refabbed toasters and waffle makers and radios) Book Worm Heaven (a second-hand book shop, which has hanging over its door a wood-cut, hand-painted logo I particularly admire: a haloed, grinning worm popping out from behind a book), and Bob's Bait-Supplies (which I reckon has real worms), to name a few. There were a few empty places, too, where the hardware store and a jewelry shop and a pharmacy used to be.

Chatting with these folks and looking at the shops and taking in the dusky night made me feel protective toward Paradise—at the same time that I felt a deep uneasiness about where we were heading.

For one thing, the Breitenstrater Pie Company was an important employer for the town. What would happen now that Alan was gone? Cletus—when and if he showed up again—surely wasn't up to running the business. We'd probably end up with firecracker pies, for pity's sake. And somehow, I couldn't imagine Dinky doing a much better job.

And, too, despite Cornelia's assurances to me that the parade would go on, and my assurances to her that the play would go on, the whole Founder's Day celebration . . . including the fireworks display that meant so much to my dear cousin Guy . . . was in jeopardy without the Breitenstraters underwriting it.

Maybe that sounds trivial, compared to someone's death, but a town like Paradise only has a few things on which to hang its pride. The Founder's Day celebration and the future of the Breitenstrater Pie Company were important to our town.

If my suspicion about the true cause of Alan's death was correct, then murder was making a mess in neat-as-a-pie Paradise . . . and from my visit at the jail, it appeared that somehow or another my Uncle Otis was right in the middle of it.

Which meant it was up to me to try to set things right.

And I didn't have a clue as to how to do it.

Mrs. Oglevee, of course, had an idea.

“Stay out of it, Josie,” she snapped at me.

I rolled over, moaning. What time was it, anyway? Of course, I couldn't check, because, as usual Mrs. Oglevee was visiting me in a dream when I most needed sleep. My back and shoulders were aching. I'd spent three hours working with Sally, who said yes she knew that her dad was in jail—he'd used his phone call on her—and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. She couldn't afford an attorney and she didn't know any more than I did. After that, we worked in silence.

I came home, listened to Owen's message that he'd shipped off the pies—he didn't say anything more than that—showered, put on my favorite, comfy Tweety-Bird nightshirt and nice clean thick white socks, had a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich while catching a Mary Tyler Moore rerun on the TV Land cable channel, brushed my teeth, then crawled into bed.

I thought, briefly, how lovely it would be to have Owen around to massage my shoulders—then pushed the thought away. It wouldn't do my heart any good to let my thoughts wander beyond that. Then I drifted off to blessed, sweet sleep . . . where I stayed until Mrs. Oglevee showed up.

She was wearing a pink blouse—just like Mrs. Beavy's, with a reddish stain right over her left breast—just like Mrs. Beavy's. Mrs. Oglevee, however, was also wearing some definitely non-Mrs.-Beavy-style clothing—a long, black velvet skirt slit up the side, high heeled silver sandals, and a gold-and-diamond tiara that was askew in her cap of tightly permed silver hair. (Mrs. Oglevee made her semiannual visit to Cherry's Chat N Curl just two days before she died.)

Mrs. Oglevee was also behaving in a very non-Mrs. Beavy style—leaning casually back against a vaguely bar-shaped cloud, while sipping from a glass of red wine, and looking awfully worn out for someone who had been in her eternal heavenly rest for ten years.

I sighed. “What do you want?”

“Like I said, stay out of it,” Mrs. Oglevee snapped, then took a long sip of wine that should have drained the glass. The glass, however, stayed full. An afterlife benefit, I supposed.

Mrs. Oglevee hiccupped.

I arched my left eyebrow, an expression that had mightily annoyed the earthly Mrs. Oglevee when she'd tried to teach me history in junior high. “Looks to me like you need to stay out of it.”

She waggled the wine glass at me like a pointer, and more wine sloshed out, right onto the reddish stain on her blouse. But Mrs. Oglevee didn't seem to notice. “You mind your own business, Josie. Just stay out of mine—and everyone else's.”

“That's what you came to tell me? To mind my own business?”

Mrs. Oglevee rolled her eyes. “/ didn't come to
you.
I was having a perfectly good time . . . well, never mind that.
You
called me.”

That's what she says every time I wonder why she's disturbing my sleep.

“Well, I don't know why I'd do that,” I said. “I've been working hard. And I'm tired, and—”

“You called me because you always were too easily confused—and you need me to straighten you out. Mind your own business!”

“You mean, you're upset because I suspect Alan Breitenstrater didn't just die of a heart attack?”

“You're going to make a big mess, if you start digging into things that aren't any of your business!”

“Aw, you're worried about me.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Mrs. Oglevee snapped. “You just need to leave well enough alone. The history of Paradise doesn't need exploring. It is exactly what I taught you and all those other snot-nosed kids. It is exactly what has been presented in the Founder's Day play—”

“—which Cletus rewrote based on something new he discovered. And now Alan is dead. And Cletus has disappeared.”

“My point exactly.”

”Ah, so you admit Cletus must have found out something for his play and that fits somehow in this whole mess.”

Mrs. Oglevee looked confused, stared into her wine glass as if that were her source of confusion, which—for all I really know about the hereafter—maybe it was.

She took another sip, then frowned at me. “I never said that. I just said don't mess with truth as everyone has always understood it. Just let it be. I would think you'd have learned something from your experience with Owen. You had a good relationship going, then he said one innocent little thing, and instead of letting it pass, you had to keep picking at it, and now look.”

“Now I know my boyfriend is a divorce, a dad, and guilty of manslaughter.”

Mrs. Oglevee smiled at me. “And that makes you happy? See?”

Well, duh, I wanted to say. Of course knowing that did not make me happy. And what really made me angry was that Owen had hidden the truth from me.

But I can't bring myself to sass an old school teacher—not even a dead one who only shows up in my dreams.

So instead I thought through what Mrs. Oglevee was trying to tell me. “What you're saying is that, if I keep digging for whatever's really going on with the Breitenstraters,” I said slowly, “I'll find out some ugly truth about Paradise, just as I did about Owen's past.”

“Yes! Now you get it! You are teachable, after all!” Mrs. Oglevee exclaimed. Then she looked horror-struck. “I mean, um, no, no . . . oh, I don't know! Just leave things be, Josie!”

“Sounds as if you know something you're not telling me.”

She glared at me, but didn't say anything.

“Just like my Uncle Otis,” I added, knowing that would rile her.

“I'm nothing like your Uncle Otis!” she snapped, then took a long drink.

“So you do know something about Paradise's real history?”

“That's for me to know and you to find out,” she said, singsong style. Did I mention her wine glass kept refilling itself? And that she taught junior high for about ten years too many?

My turn to smile. “I intend to.”

Mrs. Oglevee suddenly looked horrified and frazzled. “No, no, I just—Josie Toadfern, you—you—you—”

And with that final sputter, she disappeared, just like that. I never even got to thank her for her hint about what had really stained Mrs. Beavy's blouse.

11

There's more than one way to clean up a stain.

And there's more than one way to get to the bottom of a murder.

The key in either case, though, is knowing what you're dealing with. My dream visit with Mrs. Oglevee reminded me of that basic wisdom on both accounts.

First of all, she'd stomped into my slumber land parading about in Mrs. Beavy's blouse, drinking from an eternal stash of red wine. And it finally hit me—the stain on the real Mrs. Beavy's pink blouse was red wine.

To a lot of folks, a red wine stain would be nothing to hide. But Mrs. Beavy is a strict Baptist. And in the Baptist scheme of things, drinking's worse than lying, although poor Mrs. Beavy was probably suffering from a burdened conscience for that sin, too.

And the blouse was all cotton, so that was another good thing—silk or linen would be a lot harder to clean.

Of course, there are a lot of approaches to dealing with a red wine stain. If it's still fresh, you can dab on club soda (some people say use a clear soft drink or white wine—but I don't recommend it—because the sugar from those liquids will make its own stain!), then wash as usual. If you still have a stain, try half glycerin and half water, or try dabbing with hydrogen peroxide. (Need I mention you should always try these methods on some non-obvious place on the garment first, like inside on the hem?)

And if you've spilled red wine on carpet, you can pour salt on it. The salt will soak up the wine. Then vacuum up. Just don't use baking soda like my Aunt Clara did once. That'll make a paste that sets the stain.

Of course, all of those tips assume you're attacking the stain as it occurs. But Mrs. Beavy tried hiding the truth of her stain with a lie, so rooting it out was going to be a lot harder.

Which meant I had to bring out the big gun dried red wine stain-removal tip that, I kid you not, has been tested by University of California, Davis, professors of enology, which is the science of wine and winemaking. (And I thought
my
niche was specialized.) This also works on red pop and cherry Kool-Aid—because I've tested it myself, since Paradisites are more likely to be beset with red pop and cherry Kool-Aid stains than red wine stains, or, in the alcohol category, beer stains, but that's a different stain treatment altogether.

I read about the red wine stain-removal tip in a wine magazine on Winnie's bookmobile while waiting for her to reserve the latest mysteries for me for my early summer reading. That just goes to show the importance of leafing through anything, because you never know what you might learn.

So here's the enologist-approved-and-proven red wine stain-removal tip: mix equal parts hydrogen peroxide and Dawn dishwashing detergent. (I normally don't like to recommend brands, mind you, but Dawn is really the one that works best for this procedure.) Then dab on the stain. (Always test in a hidden spot, remember!) Then wash as the label says to do.

That's exactly what I did with Mrs. Beavy's blouse, early that Monday morning, even before my laundromat was due to open.

While Mrs. Beavy's blouse was washing on gentle cycle in one of the washers, I checked on the costumes in my apartment-to-rent (they were looking good), finished a few shirt orders, got them packaged and ready for pickup.

Then I double-checked that my laundromat was neat and clean—floor swept, folding tables wiped down, no strays in the washers or dryers. Nothing puts off a customer like opening up a washer or dryer to find someone else's left-behind socks or undies.

Next, I caught up on the orders I hadn't been able to get to with all the mayhem: Rodney Hintermeister's shirts, cleaned, starched, and pressed, just the way he liked them; towels and sheets for the Red Horse Motel; table linens for the Breitenstrater Pie Company; and all of the above folded and boxed. I tagged all of the orders as to who would be picking up what with sticky notes—with the exception of the Breitenstrater table linens. Those I'd deliver myself, in person.

For, you see, my dream visit with Mrs. Oglevee hadn't just given me an epiphany about Mrs. Beavy's blouse, but also about how to untangle whatever was going on with the Breitenstraters . . . and Alan's death, which I was convinced was the result of murder.

And to do that, I'd also have to visit Mrs. Beavy. I'd still need the information Owen and Winnie were gathering to sort everything out, but for now, I was going to see what I could learn from Mrs. Beavy. Her blouse would make the perfect excuse.

The washer finished. I pulled out her blouse and was pleased to see that it came out perfectly stain-free. I tossed it into a dryer on low, then went back to my combo office/supply room. I sat down at my desk and called Sally.

She answered on the fifth ring with a scratchily snarled, “What?”

“It's Josie.” I hollered, because a TV was on loud in the background, something with other people hollering, one of those sleazy Jerry-Springer-I-slept-with-my-best-friend's-two-headed-boyfriend “talk” shows that are really hoot-and-holler-freak-shows. Lord, I hoped Harry, Larry, and Barry—Sally's four-year-old triplets—weren't watching that junk.

“Lord, Josie, whadya want at this hour? I was up past midnight working my butt off, and—”

“I was too, remember? And it's already 8:45
A.M.
—the birdies have been up for hours. And so have your kids, sounds to me like.”

“They have?” Sally sounded genuinely surprised.

I rolled my eyes. “That's what I figure, from the background sounds. Unless you just leave the TV on all the time?”