“For the bakers,” she called. She stuffed it back into the sack and carried the load over, then handed one to each of us. She already wore hers, over her thick hand-knitted sweater.

Well, why not? I reflected. Might as well get into the spirit of the thing. I dragged on mine-she’d gotten all extra larges, so those of more petite proportions, such as herself, could wear them over sweaters or coats. Art displayed his proudly, beaming. It fit a bit tightly, but he didn’t care. Sue-naturally-looked terrific in hers. I began to feel a little more cheerful. Nothing like group camaraderie to lighten the heart.

“How’s the turkey?” Peggy asked, thereby shattering my mood.

“See for yourself.” I stalked off to her car to collect the pies I could see in the back. I heard her making cooing noises behind me and turned to see her tapping on the window. The turkey glared at her balefully.

“Oh, isn’t she sweet?” Peggy sighed with an incredible lack of insight. “I’ve already come up with a couple of names for the contest.”

“What contest?” demanded Sue, but fortunately I didn’t have to hear the answer, as several more cars pulled up, and people began calling greetings to each other. I left the Name-the-Turkey contest to Peggy.

I had to give the SCOURGEs credit, they showed up. No matter how ridiculous the event perpetrated by their elite squad, the rank and file members turned out in force to support them. I don’t know if that constituted stupidity on a massive scale, or if they’d decided it was easier to humor the lunatic fringe. At any rate, people appeared bearing pies, Peggy handed out shirts, and I began to feel like it might not be a major disaster after all.

Somewhere in all the chaos Gerda had arrived. She seemed to have put herself in charge of covering each newly delivered pie with a napkin-an excellent scheme, since the November rains hadn’t reduced the fly population noticeably. Even the contestants and their supporters began to appear. I couldn’t see a single place left where a car could be parked.

Except for a sheriff’s Jeep. Owen Sarkisian pulled up next to Freya and left his vehicle blocking the street. Privilege of office, I supposed. He got out, stopped by my car to say something cheerful to the resident turkey, then strolled over to join us. “Quite a shindig,” he said to me. “Anyone in town not coming?”

“You’ve heard about mob mentality,” I said.

Peggy beamed at us. “You can always count on Upper River Gulch. Such wonderful support.”

Sarkisian shook his head. “Must have taken a lot of organizing.” His gaze settled on Gerda. “These pies the reason you had to leave Brody alone in your house? For vanilla, wasn’t it?”

I shot him a suspicious glance, but he gave every appearance of it having been an idle question. I thought I knew him well enough by now not to fall for that.

Gerda sighed. “You don’t use vanilla for pumpkin pies. Besides, the fillings were already mixed before they were frozen.” She hesitated, then plunged on. “I’d only meant to be gone for a few minutes, you know, just down to the store.” She pointed across the street to Art and Ida’s mom-and-pop market.

“But?” Sarkisian’s friendly tone invited confidences.

Gerda scowled. “Doris Brody Quinn was in there.”

“Ahhh.” Nothing but sympathy showed on the sheriff’s face. “I noticed yesterday she wasn’t exactly your best friend.”

“She certainly is not.” Gerda glanced at him, then at me, and shrugged. “She was in full swing, with about five people for her audience, quoting her brother as saying the most vile things about my business sense. I got so furious I just stormed out and drove all the way into Meritville and had to stand in the most awful lines. It took forever.”

“It was such a rotten, untruthful thing for Brody to say about her,” Peggy declared, bristling in her indignation. “I could just kill-” She broke off, appalled.

“I know, figure of speech,” Sarkisian said. Peggy eyed him with suspicion, then hurried off as someone called her. He turned back to Gerda. “Look, I’m really sorry about this, but is there any chance you can find some way of proving you were in Meritville? It would make my life so much easier.”

“And mine,” Gerda agreed.

I marveled at Sarkisian’s ability to inform a suspect he wanted proof for her alibi, and make her think she’d be doing him a favor.

He looked around, frowning. “I don’t see that kid.”

“There are plenty here, take your pick,” I told him.

“The one who hangs around Ms. O’Shaughnessy. What’s his name, Tony something?”

“Ah,” I said, enlightened. “Tony Carerras. He’s probably working. He’s a janitor at the Still. Why?” I shot at him, suddenly suspicious.

“Just got used to seeing him tagging around after her.”

He sounded so innocent, the hackles of my suspicions rose. “What-” I began.

A racket, rather like a herd of lunatics let loose with a cartload of noise makers, shattered the midday peace. It took me a moment to realize that was almost exactly the case.

“The entertainment!” Peggy cried, delighted.

I stared at her in horror as the elementary school band and chorus marched up the street, singing and playing-if it could be called that-their hearts out. I cringed, as did every music lover in the crowd. Don’t get me wrong. I think music education should be required for everyone. It broadens appreciation of something other than the current pop culture and it heightens mathematical ability. I just wish the early stages of it didn’t have to be inflicted on me. Every squeak of a reed, every blatted note from a brass, every badly tuned instrument assaulted our ears. And, in the true tradition of small neighborhoods populated by loving parents and aunts and uncles everywhere, our crowd cheered their arrival and proudly pointed out their offspring or junior relatives to each other. Yet in spite of all this parental pride, it occurred to me that our pie eating contest might be unusually short if the entertainment were to continue throughout. I wondered if that would make it worth the ear pain.

“I arranged for them,” Peggy shouted at me.

I forced a smile back. “Thank you,” I said, and meant it. She’d take the blame, not me. Yet in spite of the continuing cacophony of wrong notes and good intentions, people still thronged to the park to take part in the contest. To my delight, Peggy had Sheriff Sarkisian formally declare the event underway. Again, I could escape blame.

We had far too many participants for the number of tables, but we’d known that in advance. We split the contest into groups, with a time limit of thirty minutes each. The Women’s Division went first, and with only forty-seven entries, they all ate at once. Peggy, Gerda, Sue and I ran around making sure each contestant had what they needed, that no one interfered and that fairly accurate totals were kept. Luckily, since that was hard work, it didn’t take the full half-hour. I think most of the women only took part for the sake of taking part, and dropped out after a few delicate bites. Only a handful put in any real effort.

In the end-a mere twenty-one minutes into the contest-a fifteen-year-old girl, tall and lanky and I’d swear not an ounce over a hundred and ten pounds, came up the winner, having consumed six and a half pies. The rest of us hated her on principle. One piece of pie-even a low-carb, non-fat, sugar-free, tasteless variety-and I gain five pounds. With all due ceremony, Sheriff Sarkisian awarded her the T-shirt that read “Pumpkin Pie Eating Queen.”

We divided the men by age, with the over forty-five’s having more contestants than their juniors. We let the “age enhanced,” as Art Graham called his group, eat first, cheered on by the observers and those still waiting their turns, and at the end of the time declared a winner. The stockpile of pies had thinned noticeably, down to a mere hundred and twenty or so. What, I fretted, if we didn’t have enough? If we had to cancel for lack of supplies, would the “youngsters”-also named by Art-demand that we reschedule and do all this again on another day? The horror of that fear left me numb.

The final group took their places on the benches. We set a pie before each of them, the sheriff blew the starting whistle, and we raced to get replacements for the fastest eaters, keeping things-I hoped-running smoothly.

I don’t know who started it, but about ten minutes into the event the laughter started. A minute later a slice of pie went sailing past my head. A whole pie flew back in the opposite direction, then all hell broke loose. Everyone dove for ammunition, and all those pies, which I’d spent two days coercing and cajoling people into baking, which we’d slaved over and lugged around and worried about and brought with tender loving care to their appointed destination, were decorating people’s shirts, the checkered cloths, the ground, even the benches. I ducked for cover under a table as a glob of orange filling hit my shoulder.

I found myself face-to-face with Gerda. “Why did you bother rounding up all those bakers?” she demanded.

“Peggy forgot to put a pie fight on her list,” I shouted back to be heard over the racket.

Gerda snorted. “We’ll know better, next time.”

“Honestly,” I said in disgust, “we could have just brought the tubs over here and let them have at it. Think of all the time and effort we could have saved.”

“Next year-” Gerda began.

“No!” I interrupted before she could get into full swing. “We are not going to start an annual pie throwing contest!”

“But-”

“No!” I repeated.

When the last ammo had been flung, and the embarrassed laughter that follows such an outbreak had begun to die down, Gerda and I emerged. The wreckage lay about us in gooey, orange gobs. I closed my eyes and whimpered.