Batter Off Dead (29 page)

“Can she reach it now?” I could barely hear myself above an engine gone berserk.

There was no immediate answer, but in a few seconds she jerked like a bass on the line; contact had been made.

Somehow we managed to get Frankie safely out of the sinkhole, although by that time all four of us were as skinned and bruised as processed chickens. The woman had the nerve to try and make a run for it, but given her age and general state of health, it was easy to apprehend her. When we got to the car, I parked her in the backseat between Wanda and Agnes, since the two of them were every bit as good as handcuffs.

I was just turning around when the earth beneath the car shook, and black and orange clouds billowed out of the ground to the east. Had I not already known the cause of the conflagration, I might well have assumed that the Battle of Armageddon had begun.

“It blew,” Agnes said, stating the obvious.

I executed some fancy steering, whilst pressing the pedal to the metal. “Hang on, ladies. Many of those sinkholes are interconnected by underground streambeds. And some of those caves lead to dead ends where natural gas gets trapped. This whole place could blow up.”

“You witch,” Wanda said. I could only hope that she was speaking to Frankie, not me. “How could you have killed a good-looking young man like that?”

“His looks were not important,” Frankie said.

I switched on the recorder I keep in the console of my car. I am, after all, a mere gatherer of information. Unable—unwilling—to carry a firearm, I carry a big mouth, along with the technology to record what others say in response to it. In this case, I was quite happy to yield the floor to Hernia’s very own Rapunzel.

“I demand an answer,” Wanda said.

“If you must know,” Frankie said, spitting out her words like they were fish bones, “he was blackmailing poor Jimmy.”

“Elias was blackmailing James Neufenbakker?”

“Ha, and you probably thought he was some holier-than-though charismatic youth leader.”

“ ‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,’ ” I said. “Romans 3:23. That would include you, my dear.”

“Strictly speaking,” Agnes said, “blackmailing is foremost a legal problem, seeing as how it does not appear on the list of the big ten. Therefore, Wanda, you are the bigger sinner.”

“Shut up, Agnes,” Frankie said.

“Why, I never,” Agnes whimpered.

“There was no need to be so rude,” I snapped.

“Save your breath,” Wanda said. “This woman ran over a kid with a steamroller. “Do you think she cares about manners?”

Rather than save my breath, I took a deep one. “I know that you and James were close,” I said. “Were you lovers?”

All three of my passengers gasped. “Y-you evil-minded sex maniac,” Frankie said, barely able speak, so great was her indignation. “We were special friends. No more.”

“I saw a photo of you two looking quite cozy; it was in Minerva’s photo album.”

“And your mind went directly to the gutter? To join Minerva’s? We were friends—that’s all. A lonely widow and a lonely widower. Soul mates only, but we did not join in the flesh.”

“Whew, that’s a relief. I’ve been wanting to poke my mind’s eyes out for days.”

“Now who’s being rude?”

“I’m sorry; I’m only human—despite rumors to the contrary.”

“Can we get back to the interrogation?” Wanda said. “I left half my scalp back there in that sinkhole, and it better not all be for nothing.”

“Right. So, dear, what was the holier-than-though, richer-than-sin, cuter-than-the-dickens chick magnet blackmailing Jimmy about?”

“It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault!” Frankie began to thrash about until Agnes half sat on her. “It was an accident! Do you hear me?”

“Of course, dear. The dead in Somerset County can hear you. But they, like me, are going to require details.”

“He was leaning over the mixing bowl, see, and his pill case plopped in the batter. It could have happened to anyone.”

“Was it open?”

“That too could have happened to anyone. Haven’t you ever
not
quite closed something all the way?”

“Yes, of course. But why didn’t James just fess up and throw the batter out?”

“Because we were running out of pancake mix, you idiot! Plus he thought that it wouldn’t be that concentrated. And anyway, it’s all your fault; you’re the one who bought the supplies.”

I prayed for the strength to stay focused. “What was in that pill case?”

“Does it matter now? Just so you know, Jimmy did his best to pick all the pills out, but he can’t see so well anymore, and that’s not his fault either.”

“I suppose it’s mine?”

“Elias saw it happen, but he didn’t do a thing! He could have helped Jimmy find the pills.”

“And because Minerva was such a glutton,” I said, “she ate a whole griddle’s worth of hotcakes in one sitting, thus sparing everyone else.”

Agnes finally found the nerve to speak. “How much was Elias asking for?”

Frankie snorted. “A million dollars! Ha. Where was someone like Jimmy going to find that kind of money?”

“But Elias was rich,” I said.

Frankie snorted again. “Are
you
rich, Magdalena?”

“Why, yes, I am—not that it’s your business, dear.”

“Well, goody for you. But apparently not everyone who appears to be rich actually is. Sure, Elias owned a fancy mountain-top house, but BUM was about to go out of business.”

“The Chinese?”

“The Indians—from India. An enterprising young man in New Delhi has started a company called Sacred Cow Udder Massage. It’s supposed to be a superior product, plus it’s much cheaper. American farmers are switching in droves from BUM to SCUM. Believe me, Elias was desperately in need of cash.”

“And so,” Agnes said, “a bad decision that turns out fatal is covered up by murder. Of course, sin can’t stay covered up. Doesn’t the Bible say that, Magdalena?”

“Be sure your sin will find you out,” I said. “Numbers 32:23b.”

“Shut up, but both of yinz,” Frankie said.

 

 

I alerted Sheriff Hughes the second I was within calling range, and we were met by a fleet of squad cars and a flotilla of ambulances before we even got to Hernia. Just how fast the sheriff and his crew drive, I don’t even want to know, for fear that I may have to perform a citizen’s arrest on one of them sometime soon.

Flannery Hughes is one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet, and just because his mama smoked a lot of marijuana while she was pregnant is no reason to suppose that he’s not intelligent; he gets his lack of brains from his papa’s side of the family, and I mean that charitably. His father sold the family farm and sunk the proceeds into a mail-order business selling pocket-size bags of sand at a dollar each. These were marketed as food for pet rocks, back during that craze. Papa Hughes actually managed to sell twenty-nine of these little bags—all to people from Marin County, California. When it became sadly apparent that his business was a bust, he spent the rest of his life writing unsigned reviews for
Publishers Weekly
.

At any rate, the sheriff insisted on riding in the ambulance with me to Bedford Memorial Hospital, which meant that the Babester had to follow by car. There was no time to find a sitter, so Baby Babester rode with him.

“Sheriff,” I said, “I had an epiphany this morning, before I got the call from Agnes Mishler telling me that Wanda Hemphopple was over at her house.”

“Miss Yoder is delusional,” Sheriff Hughes said to the ambulance attendant over the back of his hand. “Epiphany was in January.”

“So it was, dear. At any rate, I have reason to believe that Melvin Stoltzfus, Hernia’s most notorious criminal—given that he was once our chief of police—is now posing as a nun, traveling cross-country with a newfound sect called the Sisters of Perpetual Apathy.”

The ambulance attendant chuckled politely, but the sheriff laughed outright. “Miss Yoder, now, that really takes the cake! Even those silly mystery novels my papa used to review wouldn’t have plots as far-fetched as that.”

“Life is stranger than fiction, dear. But when you think about it, that’s a perfect way for him to leave the area without being detected.”

“Except by you?”

“I put two and two together. I learned to add in elementary school.”

Now the ambulance attendant snickered. This time Sheriff Hughes was not amused.

“And how was it that you deduced that it was Mrs. Schwartz—uh—the woman in custody—who ran over the young, exceptionally good-looking Elias Whitmore?”

“I was working on the assumption that the second killer was also a member of our brotherhood. Then I remembered that Frankie Schwartzentruber’s father had been in the driveway construction business. It was a long shot, granted, but my papa was a dairyman, and I
do
know how to milk a cow. Anyway, that was my first clue. Then my daughter—well, she is only my pseudo-daughter at the moment, but that will all change shortly—said something provocative about folks protecting the ones they love, and that’s when I remembered I’d seen a photograph of Frankie with James Neufenbakker, and the two of them were looking like a pair of New Caledonian lovebirds. I don’t know if you’ve met James, but the man is held together by Band-Aids and a bad temper, my real point being that I was sure he took a variety of medications.” I paused to inhale some much-needed oxygen.

“Miss Yoder,” the sheriff said, “don’t take this the wrong way, but my papa would have said that you couldn’t plot your way out of a paper bag if you had three pencils, a sharpener, and an eraser the size of your fist.”

I emitted such long sigh that for a few seconds the poor EMT thought I had gone to meet my Maker. “My dear man, I suppose, then, when you hear that I was able to rescue Mrs. Schwartzentruber from the sinkhole by convincing Wanda Hemphopple to let down her long hair, you will find that part of my tale absolutely implausible. In that case, you will be nonplussed—now
there
is a word that is often used incorrectly—when the others corroborate my story. But just so we’re clear now, I had to promise Mrs. Hemphopple that a statue would be erected in her honor, and I do not intend to cover the costs by my lonesome.
Capice?
Murder is a capital offense, so I think the capitol should help out here.”

The ambulance attendant chortled behind both hands.

“What’s so funny?” the sheriff demanded.

“Forgive me, sir, but this woman’s a hoot. And honestly, I don’t think she is delusional—but hey, she is a talker.”

“She is that,” I agreed. But since we had just pulled into the emergency room unloading area, I shut my trap tighter than a clam at low tide.

 

 

I left the hospital two hours later, in as good a shape as a teddy bear from the 1930s. That is to say, I’d left a good deal of my fur behind along the lip of the sinkhole, as Agnes and I maneuvered Wanda around in a circle like a human rope. Of course, Agnes was no better off. And as for poor Wanda—well, the intern who treated my abrasions said she was in for some severe headaches, and might temporarily even lose a bit of her bun. If we didn’t erect a suitable statue to honor her heroic sacrifice, I would have to give serious consideration to relocating somewhere far away. (I’ve heard that Boise, Idaho, has a small Mennonite community, and not a single authentic Pennsylvania Dutch bed-and-breakfast.)

At any rate, we had just returned to the inn—and yes, the Babester was with me—when the phone rang. Caller ID gave the number as the FBI office in Cleveland, but one can always hope that it’s Drew Carey, can’t one? Although I’ve never seen his show, I’ve heard he’s a barrel of fun.

“PennDutch,” I said with practiced mock cheer. “May we help you experience the pseudo-ethnic weekend of your dreams?”

“In your dreams, sis.”

“Susannah!”

“Listen, Mags, I don’t have time to waste on your silly games. This is my one call.”

“Then this is my two call,” I said agreeably.

“You see what I mean?”

“But I don’t. Please enlighten me.”

“Thanks to you, I’ve been arrested for aiding and abetting an escaped murderer.”

I swallowed hard. “They arrested
you
? They were supposed to arrest Melvin, for crying out loud.”

“What the heck is going on?” the Babester demanded. The poor man was obviously distressed by my distress.

“They
did
arrest my Mel-kins,” Susannah hissed, “but I’m the one who tried to help him get away. You had to have known this would happen.”

I staggered to the nearest chair and plopped my patooty down before I collapsed on the floor. “You knew he was dressed up as one of your nuns?”

“Mags,” she continued to hiss, “how stupid do you think I am? This whole Sisters of Perpetual Apathy thing was just a ruse to get him out of the state. You know how closely they’ve been watching traffic across the borders—all those so-called random safety checks.”

“But he’s a killer! How could you help a killer?”

“Because I love him, Magdalena, that’s why. I don’t expect you to understand this, and why should you? You’re beautiful, you have a handsome husband, and now a baby, so just don’t give me any lectures, not when you have
everything
, and I have
nothing
!”

“I don’t have—”

“Can you listen long enough to help me? They’re about to make me get off the phone.”

“Sure,” I said. My heart was pounding like a madman on a xylophone, and I felt like throwing up, even though I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.

“I need you to make me a promise—sight unseen.”

“You know I can’t if it means breaking the law. And speaking of which, don’t you need a good attorney?”

“Forget the attorney!” she screamed.

“Yes, dear,” I said quietly. “If it’s legal, and not a sin, then I promise.”