"BURNY, I KILLED your stepfather today," Nona said.

     It so ironic that Nona had poisoned Stan after she stuck her nose on Carma's dusty Bible comics and read about Jesus' offer of salvation to anyone who accepted him as Messiah.

     "Are you crazy?" Burny said, checking if his gingerbread men cookies were baking to a golden brown in the oven.

     "Listen to this," Nona said as she read from the Bible comics and chewed one still warm cookie. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."

     Salvation. Not through good works. Not even good behavior. Only through faith in the Son of God. Nona saw something wrong in this picture

     —Physical and spiritual healing.

     —Forgiveness of sins.

     —Gift of eternal life.

     —Adoption as a child of God.

     —Gift of the indwelling Spirit.

     All free.

     What God has done in the death and resurrection of Christ, made all these available to every person, saint and sinner. Everyone.

     Including Stan Lucierno.

     And it bothered Nona to pieces.

     Nona slammed the Bible comics beside the box of California raisins on the kitchen table.

     "What's wrong with it?" Burny said, cutting out a fresh batch of gingerbread men from the dough rolled out on the floured table surface and placing them two inches apart on the sheet pan.

     "It's like God mixed his only son with the dough of humanity," Nona said. "Jesus became the first among many gingerbread men so whomever God eats with him ends up in tummy heaven. Bad cookies included. As long as they're part of the Christ dough."

     "Nona, that's a long and weird explanation."

     "Stan gets a chance, that's what's wrong with the whole thing," Nona said. She added eyes, nose and buttons to a gingerbread man using raisins. "You wouldn't want the scumbag flying around in Heaven, would you? It'd be like being in Hell."

     She poisoned Stan that morning.

     Nona surmised that by getting rid of Stan (before he could come to his senses—repent, believe in Jesus, and get saved), she would do Carma, Burny, and yes, Heaven, a big favor.

     And all that after reading about God's gift of salvation through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

     "Nona, you can't just kill anyone," Burny said.

     "Hmm, looks like this one got ran over by a car tire," Nona said, eating another cookie. "You used baking soda?"

     "Baking powder," Burny said. "It's supposed to rise. The dough was not ready. I told you to add the butter and blend until the mix looked like breadcrumbs before stirring in the sugar but you rushed it—Nona, murder is a mortal sin."

     "Right. Blame the helper‑I should get an award in Heaven for killing Stan."

     Before Burny found Nona's fiendish plot out, she had already put an untraceable time-release herbal poison (a free sample she got from the Internet) in Stan's breakfast coffee.

     —She calculated the poison to kick in three hours later: Stan would be in the office by then.

     —Sudden death of a hemorrhoid ointment salesman.

     —A perfect crime.

     But Stan got an urgent call from his boss, the man he would often refer to as "the king of bleeding assholes whose sickly wife is such a pain in the ass." He was always at his beck and call. He left without even a sip of his coffee.

     Carma gulped it all down.

     Oops.

     Too late for Burny to stop her.

     Three hours later, Carma was in the bathroom. The poison was a dud. She had a bleeding constipation instead.

     Nona disappeared for a few days.