Free The Death of Pie by Tamar Myers

atrocious handwriting.
    As I sat there for a moment pondering my next move, I felt an annoying tear escape from my right eye and slip boldly down my cheek. No one, but no one, gets to see Magdalena cry in public these days. In another second I would have blotted that tear with a man-size handkerchief had not my spherical, sister-under-the-skin interrupted my thoughts.
    â€˜Mags,’ Agnes said, ‘I just felt a goose walk over my grave.’
    â€˜Why you?’ I wailed. ‘You’re not the one who is at fault.’
    No doubt there are still those who claim that people are incapable of wailing; only sirens can wail, these folks say, and then they toss heads and stick their noses in the air in such a manner that one would think that all of France agrees with them. Well, these people may be right about everything else in life, but they have never been near Magdalena when she is feeling guilty for having hurt an old woman’s feelings. Nor have these dismissive people been around Magdalena’s lungs when she realized that by conducting an investigation she will miss out on spending time with the little fella who, until recently, has spent more time inside her than out of her. So wail she did!
    â€˜Dang it!’ Agnes said and clapped her shapely but plump hands right in my face to snap me out of my reveries. ‘Does everything have to be about you, Mags?’
    â€˜ Whuh? ’
    â€˜Remember, you’re not the one whose fiancé just got killed in a fatal motorcycle accident while racing back to the castle to fetch the family doctor.’
    â€˜I thought you said it was a car accident. And he wasn’t your fiancé; he was an actor, for Pete’s sake!’
    â€˜Just step on the gas, would you? I’m starving.’
    Because I did as my friend bade, I was not saddled with the title of World’s Worst Friend. What’s more, because I held the pseudo-official, almost-legitimate, genuinely faux rank of Assistant Investigator and Honorary Dog-catcher, and was driving a car outfitted with all the bells and whistles, I was able to realize speeds heretofore unrecorded in Hernia.
    Wanda Hemphopple was an English Englishwoman. That meant that she was neither Amish nor Mennonite, and her ancestors actually hailed from across The Pond. However, like just about everyone else in this valley, Wanda’s ancestors made the trip over during the reign of King George III. During the interim, one of Wanda’s English forbearers mated with one of the more unfortunate European races – quite possibly a Frenchman. The resulting mongrel was not tall and sturdy, and did not possess the classic rose-pink cheeks of the English. Au contraire, poor Wanda was a short, wiry woman with a beak for a nose. Neither was she blessed with an Englishwoman’s sense of decorum. Oh no, Wanda Hemphopple was born with a burr under her saddle, sand up her bathing suit and a splinter under her thumbnail – in other words, in a perpetual state of grumpiness that I seemed to exacerbate. But other than the fact that I invariably drove her up the wall, I’d say that we were close friends. As a matter of fact, she was my second-best friend, after Agnes, of course.
    A fellow businesswoman, Wanda was the sole owner and proprietor of the Sausage Barn, Hernia’s nearest restaurant. This eatery is actually located in Bedford, up near the Pennsylvania Turnpike and just past the charismatic Protestant church with thirty-two words in its name.
    This restaurant is a traditional American diner in that it began as the dining car of a train. Of course, much has been added, and today one would be pretty much hard-pressed to detect ‘diner’ from ‘add-on’ when viewing the inside. Originally, in the tradition of American diners it served a wide range of food, from breakfast to sandwiches, meat and potatoes, and was open twenty-four hours a day. But then gradually – and only the Good Lord