"Well, stealing is a sin, dear, and I'm sure the Good Lord will make him account for that in the hereafter."
"I could have hired someone to stay with the children and gone back to school a long time ago," Alma said sadly. "Lot of things might have been different."
I didn't say anything. What was the point? She obviously believed George Mitchell was at the root of her troubles, and now that he was dead, she couldn't do him any harm. And I didn't think for a minute that Alma had killed George Mitchell. I have a gut instinct about these things. Although my gut won't necessarily tell me who is guilty, it invariably tells me who is not.
"And they were my best recipes too."
"What?" Even Reverend Schrock doesn't digress that much in his sermons.
"The recipes I sent Mr. Mitchell. The ones he turned into low-fat TV dinners and marketed as Smoky Mountain Memories."
"Those are your recipes?" With Freni to cook for me, I don't have much occasion to sample that plethora of frozen entrees now out on the market. I know, the woman quits her job as often as Elizabeth Taylor bails out on marriage, but she always leaves enough food behind to last until she's cooled off. However, last year when Freni slipped on some ice and was out of commission for over a week, Smoky Mountain Memories saved my life.
My guests couldn't compliment the chef enough, although they had a hard time understanding why she couldn't spare even a minute to come in and take a bow. I had to tell them it was that old Amish thing about pride, which was at least a half-truth. Even Julia, who was a guest at the time, raved about the food.
Of course one has to remove the dinners from their plastic trays and arrange them on real plates, and don't forget to dress them up with a sprig of parsley or two. A bit of garnish does for a plate what a bit of makeup does for a woman - that's what Julia said at any rate. Never having worn the latter (the garnish was accidental), I have to take her word for it.
Alma Cornwter removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. I suspected she might be crying.
"Those recipes were going to be my way out."
"Out of the mountains?"
"No, out of a trailer with eight kids and a husband who beat me - but only when he was sober, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining about that."
"Good heavens!"
"I was only sixteen when I married Ed. He was twenty-two, fresh back from the army."
"Viet Nam?"
"Nah, that was over by then. Germany. A place called Bamburg, although Ed called it Beerburg. I didn't realize it at the time - I guess I didn't want to see it - but all Ed did, when he wasn't with me, was drink."
"I see."
" drank too in the beginning. Just to keep him company. But then I got pregnant, and stopped. Ed never could hold down a job, so after Gary was born, I found a job waitressing at Grandma Mae's diner, and Ed stayed home to take care of the baby. After a while Grandma Mae - her real name was Lucinda - brought me back into the kitchen and taught me how to cook. Lucinda said that it was next to impossible to find someone who could do really good home cooking."
"Is that a fact?" Personally, I've never understood the concept of leaving home to sample home cooking. When I got out, it is specifically to sample something that tastes "store bought."
Alma nodded. "After a while I guess I got kinda good at it, because I started fooling around with the recipes, and if the customers really liked something, then Lucinda would make it a standard. Anyway, one day this woman comes in, and after she's eaten and everything, she asks to speak to me.
"So I talk to the woman, and it turns out she's some kind of a food critic. She said that my gooseberry meat loaf was food for the gods."
"No kidding." That was not one of the selections offered by Smoky Mountain Memories, and frankly it didn't sound very appetizing.
"That's exactly what she said. And she said I should start writing down my recipes and send them off somewhere."
"So you jotted them down and sent them off to East Coast Delicacies and - "
Alma was shaking her head. `I didn't send them anywhere. I had another baby. And then another."
I wanted to ask her if she had ever heard of birth control, but of course it wasn't my business. Maybe large families was a cultural thing for her. The Amish have huge families. Grandma Yoder, who was born Amish, and later became a Mennonite, was one of sixteen children. According to one Amish historian, the Amish population doubles every twenty years.
"So how did East Coast Delicacies get a hold of your recipes?"
"That's the funny thing. About a year later the same woman came into Grandma's, only this time she really liked my lemon walnut chicken."
"So do I!"
"This time she gave me an address, and that's how I sent them to E.C.D. But then nothing happened. After about a year I wrote to the company and asked for my recipes back, but they didn't answer. I wrote a couple of more times, but still nothing. Then about eight years ago, just a month before my little Lucinda - she's my youngest child - was born, I went into this big supermarket in Asheville, North Carolina, and there was my lemon walnut chicken and my cream cheese spinach souffl‚."
"Get out of town! I love that souffl‚."
"Twelve recipes in all, Miss Yoder. And every one but the gooseberry meat loaf and candied cauliflower made it into the Smoky Mountains Memories line. And do you know how much I got paid for those recipes, Miss Yoder?"
I opened my mouth, but that's as far as I got.
"Not one dime! Nada. Then last year I read an article in Homestyle Cooking that called the Smoky Mountains Memories meals `the most appetizing sensation to hit the human palate since the discovery of sugar.' " She gasped for air. "they've probably made millions off me. Millions! And there's not a damn thing I can do about it."
I gently wagged a finger at her. "No swearing in my boudoir, remember? Now have you tried suing them?"
Alma put her glasses back on, all the better to see what kind of fool she was talking to. "I saw a lawyer, if that's what you mean. But it's almost impossible to enforce copyrights on recipes."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, take my gooseberry meat loaf - you and I might both have invented the dish."
"Not hardly, dear. Although once I saw one of my mama's recipes in a book that the author claimed were her mama's recipes."
"Exactly. Recipes get handed down through generations and spread around like a cold in kindergarten. Sure, there may be minor changes, but you can't prove you were the first one to come up with it. People have been eating for millions of years."
"Well - " I prudently closed my mouth. There was no point in telling her that I believe - Reverend Schrock does, at any rate - that the world was created in six days and was nowhere near a million years old. Forget millions.
"Anyway, the lawyer said I had as much chance of winning a suit as I did being elected president."
That was indeed a shame, but probably quite true. Perhaps someday we women will wise up and realize that we comprise over half the population, and that it's about time we get a chance to officially wear the pants in the White House. What's the worst we can do? Plunge the country into war? Allow the country to slip into an economic depression? Been there, done that, as Susannah says.
"So how did that make you feel, dear?"
"Angry, of course - hey, I know what you're doing! You're trying to get me to spill my guts. You want me to say that I was so mad I killed Mr. Mitchell to get even."
"Well, did you?" I'm sure I said it in a gentle, coaxing sort of way.
Alma was a tougher nut to crack than I thought. She was on her feet in righteous indignation, her glasses literally steaming up.
"I already told you I didn't mind seeing him dead. Unlike you, I don't lie, Miss Yoder - "
"I beg your pardon!"
"Yes, I hated the man's guts, but I also hate Miss Benedict's guts. You don't see her dead, do you?"
"Our Marge Benedict? Skinny, practically anorexic, roving judge and columnist for American Appetite magazine?"
"She's the one."
"I must admit she's not a particularly friendly woman, but she's not nearly as unpleasant as Miss Holt. Why on earth would you want to kill her?"
"I don't want to kill her," alma practically screamed, "I just hate her guts. She's the woman who came into Grandma Mae's all those years ago and got my hopes up."
"Good heavens! Marge Benedict? You don't suppose the two of them - no, on second thought, I don't think so. She wasn't too fond of George Mitchell either."
Alma's glasses had slipped again and she was squinting at me over the rims. The woman might consider trying Krazy Glue.
"What do you know about Miss Benedict and Mr. Mitchell?"
"Nothing," I said, for her protection. "It's just a hunch. Have you spoken to her about this?"
"Oh, yeah. The day before yesterday, just after she arrived. But she claims she doesn't even remember me."
"You're kidding."
"No, she said she used to travel all around the country reviewing restaurants, but that she doesn't remember even meeting me. She said she thought it was possible, because she's been to North Carolina. Of course I had to be careful not to accuse her of anything, since she is one of the judges."
"Hmm," I said. "Maybe if we could get our hands on some back issues of that magazine, we could find a review of Grandma Mae's. if her name's on the review, that would prove she was there."
Alma traced an imaginary something on my floor with a mud-covered sneaker. "I don't remember ever seeing a review from American Appetite magazine. That's the kind of thing Lucinda would have posted by the front door."
I pointed to the phone. "Why don't you call her?"
"Can't. Lucinda died in May. Breast cancer. Her sons sold the restaurant to a chain called Applebee's. they tore down the old place, and built their own. You'd never recognize it now."
"Tell you what, I'll talk to Marge. Just sort of generally beat around the bush. Maybe I'll ask her if she knows of a market for some of Freni's recipes. It couldn't hurt, could it?"
Alma shrugged. I think she was writing my name with her shoe. Either that or a very long swear word.
"So, dear, you wanted to see me about something?" I nudged pleasantly.
"Speaking of Mrs. Hostetler, do you think it's fair to have your sister be the third judge? I mean, y'all are some kind of cousins to Mrs. Hostetler, aren't you?"
"Is that all? Don't you worry about Susannah, dear. She and Freni might be cousins, but they're not the kissing kind. They're as different as night and day, and those differences drive them both crazy. Anyway, just between you and me, Susannah despises Freni's bread pudding. It's Freni who should be worried."
"Oh." She didn't look up. "Miss Yoder, there's something else."
"Spit it out, dear," I said patiently.
"Uh, it's about Freni - I mean, Mrs. Hostetler."
"What about her?"
":She means well, I know, but she kind of - you know."
"Gets in the way?"
"Yeah, and she's sort of - "
"Bossy?"
"Well, yeah."
"I'll speak to her too, but if you want my advice, just get used to it. Live with it, as young people say these days."
She mumbled a salutation, started to shuffle out, and then turned. "Did you like the lamb burgers with lemon sauce?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Smoky Mountain Memories sixth entr‚e."
"Oh, yes, of course," I said out of kindness. The truth is, I'm not terribly fond of lamb, and that is the only one of their frozen entrees I didn't sample. And it has nothing to do with the fact that Mama let me bottle-feed little Mary when her mother refused to nurse her, and then served her to the family as Easter dinner three months later.
Alma smiled, and for the first time I saw that she had teeth. "My entry in the contest is curried lamb loaf with peach chutney."
I willed the contents of my stomach to stay put.
Freni poked her head in the door a few minutes later. "Yah?"
I motioned her in. "Shut the door, dear."
"Ach, I have things to do."
"This will take only a minute."
She shut the door. "God gave you long monkey arms, Magdalena. You should zip your own dresses up."
"It isn't that, dear. I wanted to talk to you about our kitchen policy."
Freni's chin edged forward. "I don't have a policy. As long as it's my kitchen, I do whatever I want."
