Valerie Malmont: Death, Guns and Sticky Buns

I knew about sticky buns, a favorite Pennsylvania Dutch treat: yeast dough, slathered with real butter, sprinkled with brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts, then rolled, sliced, and baked in a mixture of melted butter, brown sugar, and pecans. A sticky bun served warm with the sugar-butter mixture dripping onto your fingers was food fit for the gods. Also, it was guaranteed to go straight from the lips to the hips in a matter of minutes. Yes, I knew all too well about sticky buns.

Janet glanced at her watch. “Guess it's time.” She waited while I got a cup of coffee from the machine, and then we rode the creaky elevator to the ground floor.

“You're late,” Helga said as we entered the room.

“I was in the middle of something important.” Janet winked at me and sat down.

“Hmmph!”

While I'd been gone, some more people had arrived. I took the only empty chair, across from Luscious Miller, who looked nervous. It was odd to see Luscious wearing the chief's uniform. I knew the young man had absolutely no confidence in his own abilities, and smiled reassuringly at him.

Marvin Bumbaugh, the borough council president, sat at the head of the table next to the college president. He didn't look quite as important in these surroundings as he did when presiding over council meetings.

It was a small and very serious-looking group who sat around the grand table. Besides President Godlove, Helga, Marvin, Luscious, Janet, and myself, there were only three other people present: the vice-president of the college, the head of campus security, and Professor Ken Nakamura, who was sitting to my immediate right. He smiled at me and said, “Be wary of the dragons, although they generally produce more smoke than fire.”

I guessed from the way he spoke that nobody else in the room understood Japanese, and I bowed my head to acknowledge the wise advice of my elder.

“If you're quite finished, Dr. Nakamura…” Helga said briskly, “I'm sure President Godlove would like to get on with our meeting.”

The twinkle in Ken's eyes was more than light reflecting from his glasses as he bowed toward her. “I am, as always, your humble servant, madam.”

“Hmmmph!”

I'd been wrong about one thing-they weren't laying all the blame on me. And oddly, I thought, campus security wasn't picked on at all. Poor Janet was the target of most of their fury.

The questions rained down upon her. Though she tried valiantly to answer them, nobody gave her time to finish a sentence.

“Why was Macmillan playing the condemned man?”

“He asked to-”

“Who loaded the guns?”

“Two of the reenactors-”

“What were their names?”

“Woody Woodruff. And his helper, Darious De-Shong.”

“When were the guns loaded?”

“Friday night. Woody said he wanted to do it himself. For safety's sake.”

“Why weren't they locked up?”

“They were. In the basement storeroom. I locked the door myself.”

“How many keys were there? Who had them?”

“There are only two keys. I had them both with me all night.”

“Could someone have picked the lock?”

“It was still locked on Saturday morning. It's an old-fashioned kind of lock-takes a key to both open and lock it.” She opened her purse and produced a ring with a pair of keys dangling from it. “They're still here. See.”

“Did you watch the man load the guns?”

“Of course I did. Lizzie was there, too.”

“And you're positive the guns were loaded with blank bullets?”

“They didn't use bullets at all. Woody explained that they use black powder and Wonder Wads to keep it from falling out for reenactments.”

“What the hell are Wonder Wads?”

“That's what the men called them. They looked like big foam-rubber ear plugs.”

“Where were the reenactors when you arrived?”

“In the hallway waiting for me. We all then waited together until Mack Macmillan arrived.”

“Who…? Why… Where…? How…?”

The questions flew furiously over the tabletop, but instead of answering any more, Janet gasped, grasped her abdomen, and moaned.

The Lickin Creek Volunteer Fire Department ambulance arrived in record time and left for the hospital in Gettysburg with Janet in the back.

After that flurry of activity, when everyone was settled, President Godlove looked directly at me and said, “So, young lady, since you insisted on cosponsoring this event, it looks like this is now all your responsibility. Let's hear what you're going to do about this disaster.”

And the questions started again, only I had no answers. Luscious looked sympathetic, but offered no help. I knew there really was nothing he could do; I was in this one on my own.

I had no idea of what time it was when I staggered out of the meeting. President Godlove had entrusted me with the job of quietly looking into the disaster, probably because he figured if I was involved in the investigation, I wouldn't be writing nasty articles about the sorry event. I stopped at the desk and asked Jennifer, the receptionist, to direct me to Janet's office. I'd been given carte blanche to go through her files and get the names of everybody who had been involved in the reenact-ment.

The elevator carried me to the top floor of the building.

“Nice garret-for a starving artist,” I remarked, looking around the public relations office. All the meetings I'd attended for planning the reenactment had been downstairs in a Victorian parlor. Now that I saw Janet's office, I understood why we hadn't met here. The ceiling came down nearly to the floor on the outside wall, and the only window was in a dormer that looked like an afterthought. The wall below it was water-stained and blistered.

Lizzie laughed. “Our department is regarded as a necessary evil, not an important part of the college hierarchy. We just does our job and keeps our mouths shut. How about a cup of coffee?”

She ducked through a low doorway into another room and reappeared a moment later with two mugs of coffee. “It's better than that stuff in the basement machines but kinda strong.”

I sipped the coffee and nearly gagged. Didn't anybody in Lickin Creek know how to make decent coffee? Maybe I should give up journalism and open a Starbucks. “Do you have any milk?”

Lizzie brought me a jar of powdered whitener. I stirred a liberal amount into my coffee mug and tasted the brew again. It didn't help at all. “It's fine,” I fibbed as Lizzie anxiously watched me. “Any word from the hospital about Janet?” I asked.

“Yes, mother and child are doing just fine, thanks to God and no thanks to Godlove.” The way the phrase fell from her lips made me think it was used often in the college's PR department, and quite possibly in the whole college.

“She only had one baby?”

Lizzie giggled and nodded. “Poor Janet's got a lot of weight to lose.”

“Why is the college blaming Macmillan's death on Janet?” I asked. “Surely, the reenactment wasn't all her idea.”

Lizzie shook her head. “You'd think none of them have ever heard the word accident. I guess they're putting the blame on her because she was ordered to come up with something different for Parents’ Weekend. And she did.”

“I'll say it was different!”

“The college desperately needs some good publicity. Our enrollment is under two hundred and still shrinking. Janet thought staging a mock Civil War execution would get us a lot of press.”

“It certainly did, but I don't think this kind of publicity is going to bring any students in,” I said.

“I'm afraid you're right. Half a dozen girls left with their parents this morning. Including the senior who played the prisoner's wife. Her parents said she was so traumatized, she'll probably need years of therapy. Which, I'm sure, the college will have to pay for.”