"Previously on Pushing Daisies..." "Young Ned had a special gift." "He could touch dead things and bring them back to life." "But he could only bring the dead back to life for one minute." "Any longer, and someone else had to die." "And there was one more thing he had to learn, first touch, life." "Second touch, dead again forever." "But as young Ned grew into the pie maker, this gift proved to be most useful in the untimely death of his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte Charles." "Are you in love with her?" "You only got a minute." " I know." " 60 seconds." "I know." "What if you didn't have to be dead?" "You can't touch me." "So a kiss is out of the question?" "You touch murder victims, you ask who killed them." "You touch them again, they go back to being dead, and then you collect the reward?" "That's it in a nutshell." "Today is my daddy's birthday." "Do you know he would have been 60 today if he were still alive?" "It's my fault Chuck's father's dead." "I should just tell her." "Don't tell her." "I can't keep lying to her." "Chuck." "I killed your dad." "It was like any day in Play-Doh village, except today death came." "Young Ned enjoyed bringing Play-Doh death to Play-Doh people." "He did not yet realize he could bring real death to real people." "Young Chuck was 8 years, 42 weeks, 3 hours, and 2 minutes old and about to become an orphan." "Her father washed off the grit from a hard day conquering villages." "He wasn't just a star in her life." "He was a pocket universe full of stars." "Ned and his mother waited with Chuck for her aunts Lily and Vivian to arrive." "Chuck would later remember Ned being very quiet, staring at his mother as if staring at a ghost." "Only Ned knew his mother had already been dead once that day." "There but for the grace of God, only Ned knew that he had touched her back to life and, one minute later, Chuck's father died." "It had seemed to Ned a strange coincidence, a strange, troubling coincidence." "Chuck would remember Ned didn't look at her." "She would remember Vivian, who didn't like to touch anyone, was the first to embrace her, and she would remember Lily, who had no problem with touch at all, couldn't bring herself within reach, not right away." "Later that night, Chuck would remember Ned ringing the doorbell just after bedtime and Lily telling her... something happened." "Another something happened?" "His mother died." "It wasn't until Lily hugged young Ned after learning of his mother's passing that she took Chuck in her arms." "It was no less difficult for Chuck to let go of Ned when his father whisked him away to be abandoned at the Longborough school for boys." "Ned!" "Ned!" "Chuck would never see him again, not for as long as she lived." "Ned..." "Chuck!" "It's 20 years, 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 5 hours, and 54 minutes later, but this winter..." "Chuck!" "There's an unpleasant chill in the air." "After learning her father died because the pie maker brought his mother back to life," "Chuck disappeared into the night." "Chuck!" "Chuck!" "Chuck!" "Chuck!" "Chuck!" "Chuck!" "Stop squawking, you twit!" "The pie maker considered the places to find Chuck..." "Chuck!" "The places she'd run, the places she called home." "Who is it?" "It's, uh, Ned, the, uh, pie maker." "All this fuss about global warming." "Can't happen soon enough, if you ask me." "Why is it so cold in here?" "Charlotte used to light the furnace." "The thought of outliving her seemed so unlikely, we never bothered to learn how to do it." "So it hasn't mysteriously lit itself, because, clearly, it's very cold." "Clearly." "Wouldn't it be lovely if Charlotte's ghost returned to light the furnace?" "Would you like me to light the furnace?" "On the subject of Charlotte's ghost, if you sense her presence in any way..." "When you say "presence..." "If you think you see her out of the corner of your eye or hear strange noises in your room or find suspicious footprints in the snow." "Should we be expecting this presence?" "Because you're being kind of urgent over there." "Oh, God, no." "I'm just, uh, thawing, but if you were to see her or think you see her..." "I saw Charlotte once after she died." "Then I blinked, and she was gone." "It was... unpleasant, that trick my mind played on me." "And it's unpleasant of you to come here picking scabs in the middle of the night." "I didn't mean to pick." "Thank you very much for lighting our furnace so Charlotte's ghost wouldn't have to." "Am I leaving?" " Yes." " Yes." "Hiya." "Did you come by to get Digby?" "No." "Have you seen Chuck?" "Not since the chorus of slamming doors last night that woke me from a dead sleep." "Oh, did we get loud?" "Oh, you were very loud." "After all the commotion, I peeped my peeper out the peephole, saw her getting on the elevator and you taking the stairs." "I take it you didn't catch her?" "The elevator's fast, and those stairs were slippery." "I also heard you walking the streets, moaning her name like something out of a Tennessee Williams." "It may be romantic, but it's not dignified." "I don't know where she is, Olive." "Maybe she doesn't want you to know." "Now go clean yourself up." "You look like crap." "It was hard for Olive Snook to close the door on the pie maker's breaking heart." "Are you gonna tell me what he did?" " Did he beat you?" " No." " Did he look like he wanted to beat you?" " Olive." "Is it over, you and him?" "No, I don't know." "I'm just digesting." "Well, I guess you can stay here till you've passed whatever it is you're digesting." "Thank you, and please don't tell him where I am." "Hey, Digby." "Did you shave his bum?" "No, he must have got it caught in the vacuum." "Did the vacuum take a bite out of you?" "Look, I know this is none of my business, but I have so many questions tugging at my tongue as to why you faked your death, and I've just felt like I needed to respect your privacy on this issue." "I appreciate that." "But I am not gonna respect your privacy right now." "Why did you fake your death?" "Is this an insurance scam?" "Are you and the pie maker in some kind of cahoots together?" "I died." "And he brought me back to life." "Cahoots enough for you?" "If you don't want to tell me, just say so." "I was just curious if you were fighting over the cahoots or something more... personal." "More personal than cahoots-related." "Can we go back to the "respecting my privacy" thing?" "Yeah, sure." "I'm going to your aunts' later." "Now that you're avoiding Ned, I guess you won't be making them a pie." "You want me to grab one off the rack?" "Would you mind terribly making it from scratch?" "They like it a certain way." "Well, whatever way you've been making them is doing the trick." "The mermaids are swimming." "They're back in the water?" "Vivian told me." "Lily doesn't want me to know." "Thinks I'll gloat." "So I'm pretending not to." "I'm pretending not to know a lot these days." "Pear with Gruyère baked into the crust?" "Mm-hmm, and I add extra vanilla." "It's my secret ingredient." "Lily loves vanilla." "You got it." "But Chuck's secret ingredient wasn't vanilla." "It was an herbal mood enhancer." "Olive Snook had been delivering enhanced pies for weeks, not realizing she was a homeopathic-drug mule." "Not very strong vanilla." "I told her I killed her father." "She asked you if you killed her dad?" "Did she ask you that?" "Did them words come out of her mouth?" "No." "We were talking about phantom limbs, and I blurted it out." "It was like word vomit." "Then you slipped in that word vomit and fell on your ass and now you're covered in word vomit." "Dead girl could be out there all grudgy grudge with a beef to pick." ""Hello, evening news." ""I'm lonely tourist Charlotte Charles." ""I just crawled out of my grave, and here's how." "I'm having difficulty breathing." "What kind of state is she in?" "A bad state." "She just up and left, and now she's all alone in the cold, cold world." "It sound like she want to be out alone in the cold, cold world, so don't go tracking her down, reminding her why she's mad at you." "Then she really will go to the evening news." "That's what I said, except for the evening-news part, which I don't understand." "We're talking about Chuck, aren't we?" "We're talking about Chuck, me and him." "I don't know what the hell you talking about, 'cause this don't concern you." "Schoo!" "Dead girl's got to work out whatever she needs to work out, but you can't go dropping the "I killed your dad" bomb and expect happy go lightly." "I've got a "here's what you should do."" "Leave her be, and while you leaving her be, there's somebody I need you to talk to." "The facts were these;" "an adjuster for Über-Life Life Lnsurance, one Victor Narramore, was 46 years, 11 weeks, 5 days, 17 hours, and 3 minutes old when his body was scooped up by a snowplow on the 200'ed block of Oak Street." "Unsettled by this particular new year's tiding," "Oak Street homeowners association offered a reward to find Victor Narramore's killer." "Anybody ever ask you why you wear that sweater?" "My niece gave me this sweater last Christmas." "That thing's uglier than a chipmunk's ass." "He means the sweater, not your niece." "Why would somebody give somebody a Christmas sweater for Christmas?" "You can only wear it that day." "He means should only wear it that day." "Yeah." "Either you got to take off what you got on to put it on or you got to wait another year for the next holiday season." "Why are you going toe-to-toe with me on fashion?" "Only thing I want to hear from your peeper is," ""happy holidays," and, "here's your rent."" "Happy holidays!" "Here's your rent." "Feels light." "You just stronger than you think." "I can't move." "You're frozen solid." "Hmm, so there is such a thing as a snowball's chance in hell." "You're not in hell, Mr. Narramore." "Should you be?" "Oh, no." "No, no, no, of course not." "Well, it really depends on who you're talking to." "Who am I talking to?" "Angels of justice." "Oh, then I am in hell, aren't I?" "Who killed you, Mr. Narramore?" "I don't know who killed me, but I do know how they killed me." "After a long day at the office," "Victor Narramore was walking to his car when he heard someone approaching rapidly from behind." "Victor Narramore didn't see who killed him, but he did see how he was killed, and he was, in fact, killed with kindness." "You were killed with kindness?" "Not the sentiment, which would have been lovely, but the word, which was scratched into the business end of a baseball bat." "Somewhere between kindness and the morgue, somebody turned you into a corpsicle, and you got scooped up by a snowplow." "No idea why somebody would want to kill you?" "Well, I am an insurance adjuster." "We're more hated than parking enforcement." "How come?" "It's my job to quantify people's lives and decide if they deserve a new organ." "No one wants to be told if they should live or die." "Hey, do I get to live now?" "No." "Now I got to make a list of people who wanted to get an organ but were turned down by Victor Narramore." "But the pie maker didn't care about Victor Narramore and his unattainable organs." "He only cared about Chuck, out there, alone in the cold, cold world." "But what he didn't know was that she wasn't alone at all." "Ned?" "Not Ned." "In winter, everything is dampened and hushed, sounds and smells, but not you, girl who smells like honey and death." "Hello, Oscar." "I hope your bees are surviving the chill." "Seem to be." "That explains the honey but not the death." "I'm cold." "I'm going in." "Thank you." "This will keep you warm." "My sweater." "It's clean, if that's what you're worrying about." "In fact, it's very clean." "I collected every last bit of anything that wasn't cashmere, even a little sample of your hair." "All right, this is making me very uncomfortable." "You mean up on a rooftop with a near stranger who's waxing on about collecting your hair?" "Yes." "Wait, did you shave Digby's bum?" "What is with you and that dog?" "You both have the same scent." "You did shave Digby's bum." "Which reminds me, could I please have a larger sample of your hair?" "Why?" "What are you gonna do with it?" "Stuff it in my pillow." "Human hair is much softer than down." "I'm teasing you." "I'm just curious, huh, why you and that dog aren't like anyone else." "Hair can be so telling about so many things." "Unless you already know what the hair knows and want to tell me." "My hair doesn't know anything." "Maybe it's you." "People smell strange smells all the time." "They don't even exist." "Are you suggesting I have a neurological disorder that's affecting my olfactory glands?" "You do spend a lot of time in the sewer." "I suppose... some of us belong underground." "You can't have any of my hair." "Then I guess the dog's ass shavings will have to do." "Bees; the ancient Egyptians believed they were inexorably entwined with death." "They used honey to mummify their dead and left jars of it in the tombs for food in the afterlife." "You know a lot about bees." "And I suspect you know a lot about death." "Boy, it's cold." "You know... you could use a witch's bosom as a hot-water bottle on a day like today." "Any sign of Chuck?" "And how are you today, Olive?" "I'm fine." "Thanks for asking, Ned." "That was a funny joke about the witch's bosom, Olive." "Well, thanks, Ned." "And I appreciate you using the word "bosom"." "Why, Ned?" "'Cause it's less offensive than other words?" "No, I just simply like the word bosom." "I say it to myself all the time." "Bosom, bosom, bosom." "I just can't help myself." "I'm a bosom-oholic." "Are you done?" "Think so." "You promise you don't know where she is?" "Why would I know where she is?" "Because I keep going over it in my mind, and Chuck doesn't know many people, and you're not one of the many people Chuck doesn't know." "Have you slept at all?" "Did you know you have a tell when you lie?" "Do I?" "You answer questions with questions." "Maybe I know I have a tell, and I know you know I have a tell, and I'm doing it now to confuse you cause you don't know what tell I'm telling." "But why would you go through the trouble of answering questions with questions and pretending to lie if you really don't know where she is?" "Can you tell me?" "Victor Narramore turned down 15 people for organ transplants." "Of those 15 people, 3 are viable persons of interest." "Why only 3 viable?" "Because 12 are not viable." "Yeah, one of those viable persons of interest lives in the 200 block on Oak Street, named Abner Newsome." "Got turned down for a new heart a year ago by Victor Narramore." "Is Abner Newsome still alive?" "Hence "viable"." "I should stay here and wait for Chuck, just in case." "Oh, you don't want to talk to a sick kid." "No, I understand." "It's a hard, sad life." "Are you really trying to make me feel guilty when I'm this depressed?" "I'm trying to get you out of your depression." "You don't need me to talk to the living." "Suit yourself." "But dead girl don't need you, either." "You're the last person in the world she wants to talk to, which is why she ain't here." "Before I head out, I want you to take a mental picture of me, your friend Olive, who's here with Digby, a snapshot of loyal friends." "Thank you." "Did you take your picture?" "Yes." "Oh, look, it's Ned." "Did you shave Digby's..." "We don't know how that happened." "Okay, see ya." "Been lookin'." "Been hiding." "How much does Olive know?" "Don't worry about what Olive knows." "Even if i told her the truth that, 372 00:18:31,340 -- 00:18:34,400 I died and you brought me back to life, she wouldn't believe me." "You don't know that." "Yes I do, 'cause I told her, and she wouldn't believe me." "Why would you do that?" "Because I needed to tell somebody the truth, even if they didn't believe me." "I wanted to tell someone the truth about who I am and what had happened to me." "And what you did to my dad." "Can't we keep the truth between you and me?" "It's hard to keep the truth between you and me when I can't look at you." "I remember that night when you came over after dad had died, and... you wouldn't look at me." "Chuck, please." "Do you know that no one could tell me how he died?" "I thought was the fickle finger of fate, but it wasn't the fickle finger of fate." "It was your fickle finger." "That one right there." "I didn't mean my finger to be fickle." "I didn't know what it would do." "I know." "I've rationalized the whole thing." "It was like you were playing with a gun, and it accidentally went off and it killed my dad." "Like that, except there's no gun and I wasn't playing." "My mom died..." "And, yeah, I'm the kid who killed your dad, and I hate that." "I hate that, too." "But do you hate me?" "I have to hate you a little just for a little while." "And I can't do that if you're still here." "I don't want you to hate me." "I should stay." "If you stay, I'll just end up hating you more." "Just go." "Chuck considered how much easier circumstances would be... if she had someone to talk to who wasn't the pie maker." "Someone who might believe her secrets if she told them." "Someone else who belonged underground." "Hot on the trail of an ice-cold killer," "Mr.Cod paid a visit to the third of his three persons of interest in the murder of Über-Life Life Insurance adjuster Victor Narramore." "The facts were these;" "Abner Newsome was a happy child for the first 34 seconds of his life, whereupon it was discovered that he suffered from a debilitating heart condition." "As the single mother of a sickly, surly child," "Emma Newsome was a raw nerve, her son would often peel like a potato." "When I saw you coming up the block," "I thought you might be from the Wish-a-Wish foundation or some other charity or a celebrity or a celebrity representing a charity." "That's nice." "It's nice for your son to know there are people that care." "Yeah, caring is great." "Love the caring." "Know what would be even better?" "Not dying." "Abner, this is Emerson Cocks." " He's investigating a crime." " It's "Cod"." "I heard on the news that that Narramore guy got whacked." "He turned me down for a good heart once, so he can pretty much suck it, I think." "You don't seem too bereft at his passing." "I'm not, not at all." "Abner." "Oh, please, tell me I'm a suspect." "Awesome." "'Cause... 'cause you know what I did first?" "I took a magic potion that made the tissue-paper sack I call my heart work, then I stepped on his neck with the soggy, atrophied breadsticks that used to be my legs." "My son is very sick, Mr. Cocks." "It's "Cod," and, uh, I can see that." "If you're not here to grant us a wish or give us some free merchandise, then I think you should leave." "Don't let the door hit you on your big, oxygenated, blood-filled ass on the way out." "You pushing it." "If I piss you off, you gonna sneeze and kill me?" "Have a nice day!" "If you have any more questions, I'll be right here... or slumped in a pile on the floor." "Good boy!" "Good boy!" "Hey, why don't you leave a present up there on the porch for them, too." "Everybody around here got an attitude." "Having followed the frozen stiff from Abner Newsome's house to the morgue," "Emerson Cod grew concerned." "I'm concerned." "About Chuck?" "About you and your mooning over dead girl." "You got to pull yourself together." "We got a corpsicle to question." "Yeah." "Freezer burn." "Go ahead." "Bill Richter, Über-Life Life Insurance." "If you've got big problems, we've got bigger solutions." "That's life, Über-Life." "Another Über-Life insurance agent." "Actually, I prefer insurance adjuster." "It's my job to assess damage." "Maybe it's time for a self-assessment." "Oh, this." "Guess that's what happens when you're smacked with a bat." "Any idea who smacked you?" "No, but you might want to ask Kevin." " Kevin?" " Kevin?" "Kevin van den Eykel." "We carpool." "Yeah, we'd just left the others and headed for my car, where I was fumbling for my keys when, all of a sudden, I hear him scream,"watch out!"" "Next thing you know, here I am." "Where am I?" "You're, um, in the morgue." "If I'm dead, why are you the one with the long face?" "Let me guess." "Girl problems?" "Hell no." "Hell yes." "I could see it in his eyes." "What's her name?" "I call her Chuck, but that's not her real name." "It's actually kind of a funny story." "Would you ask this fool how he ended up in a snowman?" "Sorry, I can't talk about this right now." "That's okay." "It'll come when you're ready." "Till then, chin up, big guy." "I'm sorry." "I thought I'd pulled it together, and then I came apart." "Well, your coming apart, pulled apart this case." "We still don't know a damn thing about this killer." "We don't, but Kevin van den Eykel might." "Are you Kevin van den Eykel?" "Nope." "Steve Kaiser." "I've been covering Kevin's cases since he went missing." "When did he go missing?" "Same night as Bill Richter and Victor Narramore." "In all probability, he's dead like them." "Of course, the company's not gonna pay off on his policy until the police find a body, so his wife's been struggling to keep her head above water." "I'm surprised they didn't just cancel her insurance and put the final nail in her coffin." "Sounds like you don't approve of how things are done around here." "Who'd you say you work for, again?" "We didn't." "I'm a private investigator." "This is my associate." "Then I think I've said enough." "If you gentlemen will excuse me..." "Hold on." "Bill Richter's body was found in the front yard of a boy named Abner Newsome." "All we're trying to do is find out why." "From what we gather, Abner applied to Über-Life several times." "Was Bill working on Abner's case?" "Bill, Victor and Kevin all rejected Abner for a heart transplant." "That's something we in the private-eye business like to call "a pattern"." "Let's go." "Asses." "Excuse me?" "I'm talking about the suits who run this business." "Good God." "How many people have to pay the price before that boy finally gets a heart?" "Why don't you just approve his application?" "Because I'll lose my job." "Besides, it's not up to me." "It's up to the numbers, and his number's almost up." "Low survival odds plus exorbitant transplant costs equals bad business, and that's the bottom line around here." "Hell, if this place has taught me anything, it's people are expendable." "I got your invitation." "I'm glad you came." "I was scared a little bit." "Chuck felt alive holding the dark secret of her death so close to the light of day." "I have a hypothesis." "Hypothesize." "A cell starved for oxygen, as in death, is marked." "Even after the life returns, the signature of the shock to the system remains." "How?" "There's always the slightest whiff of ozone, like the fading memory of a dream." "Do I smell of ozone?" "Your dog does." "Did he die and come back?" "That would be impossible." "People come back every day." "They fall into frozen lakes, have heart attacks, their lungs collapse." "Then someone pulls them back from the edge." "I think I'd know if Digby died." "Maybe you didn't notice because you were dying, too." "That's pure conjecture, based solely on the hair of a dog's behind." "Chuck could feel her truth stepping out of the shadows, warming its toes in the sunshine, and the man from the sewer could sense it." "It can be so exhausting carrying a secret." "I need a pair of scissors." "Tell me my secret." "Anticipating the arrival of a third body, Emerson Cod and the pie maker returned to the house of the heartless boy." "Ma'am, the two insurance adjusters that died were both linked to your boy." "We have reason to believe a third body's gonna show up on your lawn sometime soon." "That's not good." "Oh, no, that's real good." "'Cause this time, we're gonna be waiting outside to catch the iceman when he cometh." "Thank goodness." "A boy with a heart like Abner's doesn't need any more stress." "Mr. Cod, this is Madeleine McLane." "She's a Wish-a-Wisher from the Wish-a-Wish foundation." "And this is Bobo." "A bonobo." "I love a man who knows his monkeys." "The bonobo is the gentlest of primates." "They're great with sick children." "That's why I'm giving him to Abner." "Were you wishing for a cuddle?" "Actually, I was wishing for a butter knife so I could pop out its heart and use it as my own." "Oh, okay." "N-no monkey." "Bobo." "How about tickets to Medieval Times?" "On the list of things I'd like, cuddling a monkey and going to" "Medieval Times are right next to constipation and diphtheria." "There must be some Wish-a-Wish wish you wish for." "Yeah, I wish you'd all just go away." "All righty, then." "I apologize for Abner, but he's been feeling very sick lately." "I think he just wants to be alone." "Yeah, we'll be, uh, outside watching over you both tonight." "The only person with any real motive is Abner's mom, but hell, that's just cold stupid." "Right." "What kind of killer leaves her victims in her own lawn?" "We sit here long enough, we'll find out." "Would you quit wiggle-warting?" "You're steaming up the windows and giving the neighbors the wrong idea." "I can't help it." "My body's staked out here." "My mind's staked out where she is, wherever that is." "Oh, I know you ain't gonna start talking about dead girl on our stakeout." "What do you think chances are of getting her back?" "Do I look like a damn Ouija board to you?" "What if Steve Kaiser was right, and life just adds up to one big calculation where you take all the good you've ever done and subtract all the bad?" "After what I've done..." "What if Chuck and I don't add up?" "Oh, you add up... to zero." "Zero?" "As in zero interest in discussing it." "You don't understand." "Oh, I understand better than you think." "You feel like you..." "like you messed up, like you just lost the only person who ever meant anything to you." "Part of you feels like it's for the best, and like maybe you never even deserved her in the first place." "Okay, maybe you understand, but there's something I can do to get Chuck back." "I can give her back her father, if only to say goodbye." "The relationship between a father and his daughter is tenuous." "It's very fragile." "It could take a lifetime to sort out all the issues there." "And, what you thinking?" "You can just "happily ever after"-it, after one minute?" "Man, you a dreamer." "And you're a cynic." "I'm a father." "As in a priest?" "As in a man with a daughter." "You have a daughter?" "Where is she?" "Why don't you ever..." "Scratching an itch only makes it itchier." "This is my itch, and I sure as hell don't want you scratching it, understood?" "Understood." "No more scratching." "My itches or yours." "Good." "Emerson Cod focused back on the case, little knowing someone else was focused on Emerson and the pie maker." "Emerson!" "Wake up!" "Emerson, come on." "Come on." "It feels like my head is gonna split in two." "It's carbon-monoxide poisoning." "Someone put a potato in our tail pipe." "Oh, lord." "Please tell me I ain't dead." "You're not dead." "And I can be not dead for longer than a minute?" "There are no minutes involved." "You will continue to be not dead until you're dead, but I've never undeaded you at any point." "Good." "You may be dying from breathing a poisonous gas, but dead, no." "No." "Oh, hell." "Realizing their lives were still lives, the pie maker and the private investigator could not say the same for the body surely frozen in the freshly made snowman." "See?" "I used to love snowmen." "The darling mermaid darlings overcame their incapacitating social phobias with the help of Chuck's mood-enhancing pies." "But unbeknownst to all, this latest pie wasn't just dosed." "It was overdosed." "I have been craving this pie all day." "That's not what I've been doing all day." "We're making costumes for our next tour." "If we have a next tour." "None for me, thanks." "I don't like vanilla." "I didn't ask either of you if you wanted pie." "I'm in training." "The aunts had begun to hope again, which left Olive with one simple wish." "I sure wish Charlotte could see you like this." "Maybe Charlotte can see us like this." "Evidently, her ghost is about." "Really?" "Someone's seen her ghost?" "Meanwhile..." "Chuck considered the risk she'd taken by sharing her secret with the man from below the ground." "She wondered what he would discover in the swath of brunette truth she had given up." "And then..." "Hello, Chuck." "You sneak up on people." "That could get you inadvertently bludgeoned with a rolling pin." "I find a bludgeoning to be a unique sensory experience." "I taste pennies and smell burnt toast." " I came to return the hair." " My hair?" "It's a gesture of trust." "You know everything there is to tell about the hair." "I'd rather hear about it from you." "I think you want to tell me." "In that moment, Chuck realized her hate and sadness had begun to fall." "There was only one person with whom she wished to share the burden of an impossible secret." "Should have asked the hair while you had the chance." "The pie maker." "In Bulgaria, we were en route to a competition when a band of gypsies stopped the train." "They came through the cabin and stole one woman's watch and her soul." "They didn't take her soul." "Well, she was ornery and vacant after they left." "Because they took her watch!" "I can't imagine the adventures you've been on." "Oh my, Lily." "Did you eat the whole pie?" "Are you feeling all right?" "What did you put in that pie?" "Just vanilla." "Oh, there's no vanilla in that pie." "As Olive wondered what exactly she did put in Lily and Vivian's pie, Emerson Cod, private investigator, drew an intriguing conclusion." "We are giant, enormous idiots, and don't you say "ginormous," 'cause that ain't a word." "Whoever plugged our tail pipe waited for us to pass out and then put the body in the lawn." "Mrs. Newsome was peeling potatoes yesterday." "Maybe we were wrong about her." "Yeah, maybe she has gone all blood simple, hiding her victims all up in snowmen." "Kevin would know." "Yeah, let's ask him." "Or not." "I'm not touching that." "Fine with me." "Let's talk to miss Newsome." " What happened?" " The insurance company rejected Abner again." "Nice meeting everyone." "Now, if you'll pardon me, I'll be sucking puréed turkey through a straw while my organs putrefy, but, hey, you enjoy yourselves." "Do you know who it was who called from the insurance company?" "Why?" "You want to send him a card, too?" "Send who a card?" "Mr. Kaiser." "The Wish-a-Wish lady called." "After I told her about Abner, she said she wanted to let Mr. Kaiser know about her foundation." "The Wish-a-Wish lady." "She's a kill-a-killer." "Emerson Cod and the pie maker arrived at Über-Life Life Insurance in an attempt to find Steve Kaiser..." "What are the chances of that?" "before an act of kindness found him." "What are the odds of you having a daughter?" "'Cause you've never actually mentioned her before." "First off, you're like my grandfather." "You slow down when you talk, so stop talking." "Second off, when I said what I said, it wasn't said in the "we need to talk more about this later" kind of way." "It was said in the "I regret what I'm saying"." ""There must be a potato in the tail pipe" kind of way, so stop talking." "As Emerson and the pie maker closed in on the killer wish maker, the wish maker had already found her next snowman." "Stupid frozen door." "Oh, shoot." "A ding." " I just didn't want you to think..." " Stop!" "I've been so focused on myself lately." "Stop the car!" "I'm gonna need you to stop wielding on the insurance adjuster, ma'am." "What if I have a gun, too?" "Oh, you don't have to do this." "Madeleine, please put the gun and the bat down... or definitely the gun." "Is that your wish?" "I'm sorry?" "Because granting wishes is my job." "The facts were these;" "Madeleine McLane was a dream come true at the Wish-a-Wish foundation, where she provided succor with suckers, coaxed chuckles from colics." "But she met her match in Abner Newsome, the little boy who lacked a heart." "I'm Maddy." "Why don't you tell me about your super-special self, sweetheart?" "That basket smells like old pus." "And though she tried and tried..." "I said, lap dance, not tap dance." "There must be something you wish for." "Yeah, I wish those insurance-company jerks who keep rejecting me would drop dead." "Until she realized the boy without a heart wanted revenge." "As Madeleine McLane prepared to grant one last deadly desire," "Bobo, the bonobo monkey had a wish of its own, to play with a ball on a stick called the shifter." "And so its wish was granted... as was the wish of Madeleine McLane, for though her sanity was torn asunder by a boy named Abner Newsome and her body was torn apart by a bonobo named Bobo, her heart was still intact," "which allowed her to grant one final wish, and that was for Abner Newsome to have a change of heart," "Madeleine McLane's heart." "The pie maker came upon another heart in need of repair." "Chuck?" "There's no headstone for me yet." "We wait a year." "How did you know I was here?" "Because I've been everywhere else first." "Is "a little while" over yet?" "Because I can't bear the thought of you hating me still." "I feel better." "I have an idea." "No." "I thought, for one minute..." "I'm not gonna bring him back just so you can watch me kill him again." "I can't do that to you." "I won't." "Chuck wished things were different." "She wished she knew her father." "She wished she knew her mother." "She wished the pie maker could comfort her by holding her close." "Not all those wishes were meant to be, but one of them was." "I love the quiet on a snowy night." "No, I feel fine." "Much better now." "Stop it." "You're the one who should be cold." "Mm-mmm, that was good pie." "When Charlotte was young, after we moved in, she used to stand right... right there, where you're floating and watch the snow with me." "At night, while she slept, I'd sneak into the backyard and make two snow angels." "She never said anything, and I'd always play dumb." "She thought they were her parents." "One was her father." "The other one was me." "You?" "I'm Charlotte's mother."