Read Online Just Plain Pickled to Death by Tamar Myers - Free Book Online

so sure?”
    She took her time before answering, blowing on each magnificent finger like it was a candle with a stubborn wick.
    “Because, dear, it was Vonnie who had the affair with Benjamin, not Becca.”
    I gulped. “Auntie Veronica?”
    “Well, I can’t actually prove that they had an affair affair, if you know what I mean.”
    I nodded, although it was machts-nichts to me. What did I know about the various levels of an affair? It didn’t matter, though, because Lizzie loved to talk.
    “It was a terrible idea in the first place, that twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party. Aaron Senior and Catherine were never happily married. So why celebrate twenty-five years of bickering?”
    “Why, indeed?”
    “Because that’s what our family does. So we all dropped everything and made happy for a week. Fortunately none of us lived out of state, so it wasn’t a big financial hardship, except maybe for Vonnie and Rudy. You’d think Verona was on the moon, the way she complained.”
    “I thought they lived in Fox Chapel.”
    She had a cultivated chuckle. “They do now, of course, but back then they didn’t have enough change to play tiddledywinks.”
    “I’ve been to Verona,” I felt compelled to say. “It’s right next to Oakmont, where Mystery Lovers Bookshop is located. Fox Chapel is on the other side of the Allegheny River.”
    “Exactly. Well, Vonnie bitched for about a day or two, and then she saw this sign for a revival, and the next thing we knew, she had fallen head over heels in love with the accordion player.”
    “Was he cute?”
    Platinum blondes don’t always emit cultivated laughs. “He was as ugly as a mangy hound dog dead two days.”
    “That bad?”
    “Honey, none of us could see what she saw in him. Of course, Rudy may not be so much to look at now, but in those days he was a hell of a lot cuter than that accordion player.”
    “Maybe she was having trouble with her marriage,” I said meekly. The meekness part was important. Most married folks bristle when a spinster offers an opinion on the subject.
    “Yeah, well, that’s a whole book in itself.”
    “Do tell. The high points, I mean.”
    “You sure this won’t offend your sensibilities?”
    “Positive.” At least not any more than the question itself had.
    “Rudy Gerber considers himself God’s gift to women.”
    “I noticed.”
    “He put the squeeze on you?”
    “I felt like I was an orange.”
    “Welcome to the club. Unfortunately that’s not as bad as it gets.”
    “So he had affair affairs?”
    She looked me over casually, like I was a horse she was about to bid on. “Of course I can’t prove that he did, but everyone knows he did. Especially after they moved to Verona. From what I hear, that place is a real fleshpot.”
    I felt cheated for having noticed nothing more than a quaint riverside town whose main street was lined with antique shops.
    “And Rudy is a Mennonite?”
    “Born and bred.” The cultivated laugh returned. “Honey, Mennonites are just like everyone else.”
    Not the ones I knew. Not in Hernia. I grew up thinking we had it all over the Catholic church. They had just one Virgin Mary with a son; we had hundreds.
    “So you think Veronica ran around with the accordion player to get back at Rudy?”
    “Two and two makes four, doesn’t it?”
    I sat quietly for a few minutes watching her paint the enormous nails on her gargantuan hands. If I had nails that big, and the courage to paint them, I would feel compelled to paint scenes from the Gospels. One of her thumbnails alone could hold the Feeding of the Five Thousand—if done with a very small brush, of course.
    “About Rebecca,” I said at last, “a little bird told me that Rudy was pestering her that summer. You know what I mean. And that it made Jonas, Rebecca’s husband, jealous. Is that true?”
    “Does this little bird put mint jelly on tongue sandwiches?”
    “Let’s say it’s possible.”
    “Ah, Freni, of course. I know she’s your