"Everyone's gathered in the den," she announced. "Even that horrible Ms. Holt. They want to know when lunch is. I told them I'd be happy to drive into Bedford and bring back pizza, or we can call the order in." She gave me a meaningful look that I ignored.
I see no sense to pay the extra ten-dollar delivery charge to get stone-cold pizza delivered from Bedford. Someday, if Hernia ever got a pizzeria, then maybe. In the meantime I have a perfectly able cook - well, you know what I mean.
"Is that Carlie back too?" I asked pleasantly.
Susannah shuddered. "Ugh, that horrible Ervin Stackrumple brought her back from Hernia. What's that all about?"
"Later, dear. In the meantime, tell them lunch will be ready in the shake of a lamb's - " I remembered Alma's contest entry and shuddered. "Just tell them to relax and make themselves comfortable. We'll have it on the table as soon as we can."
I did my best to get lunch on the table within the hour, but the one frenzied Freni was now unfazed. She poked along like a turtle in molasses, all the while telling me what she planned to sew or knit for the baby.
"Maybe I should just quit," she suggested at one point. "Just think of all the cute little outfits I could make for the sweet little pumpkin."
I shuddered. "You're Amish, dear. Everyone dresses the same. How many identical little outfits does a baby need? Anyway, if you quit now, I'll tell Barbara all about the contest - how you schemed to get rid of her."
"Ach!" Unflappable Freni flapped just that once.
"On the other hand, if you keep working, you can buy the little darlings their own farms. I'm sure they'd like that much better."
"They! Did you say they?"
My heart pounded. "I said no such thing."
"Yes, you did. I just heard you. Is my precious Barbara going to have twins?"
"Ha! Don't be ridiculous."
Freni flapped again. "Ach, then why did you say `they'?"
"It was just a slip of the tongue, dear."
"Slip, shmip! That dear girl is having twins, and you want me to make lunch for the English? I should be home right now - "
"Barbara's not having twins," I screamed, and then before I could say more, I shoved my fist in my mouth.
Lunch, when we finally got it on the table, was the worst fare the PennDutch has ever served. The chicken was chewy, the dumplings doughy, and the sherbet had to be sucked through a straw. It was definitely not typical Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. I've eaten in Presbyterian homes with better food. A bigger woman would have taken down her shingle or, at the very least, openly converted to another denomination.
Time and tide waits for no man, and many is the time I've wished the tide would come inland as far as Hernia and wash Melvin Stoltzfus out to sea. When the phone rang during our delayed lunch, I knew without a doubt it had to be him.
"Aren't you going to get the phone?" Susannah asked, treating us all to a glimpse of masticated chicken.
"Susannah, dear," I said, furrowing my brow in a meaningful way.
That's all I needed to say, but it was two words too much. One would think that after almost a lifetime - she was married less than a year - spent in a Yoder household, she would be wise to the fact that we do not let that plastic box with bells pull our strings. Not during meals.
The front desk phone rang until the machine picked up, then it immediately rang again.
"It could be important," Susannah said, risking my wrath. Either she was expecting a call, or the six pairs of guests fixed on me were making her nervous. Freni, incidentally, does not eat with us, and never answers the phone anyway.
I would have unplugged the blasted thing, had it rung again, but immediately after the desk machine picked up for the second time, the phone in my bedroom rang. That's when I sprinted. That is an entirely different matter, mind you. My bedroom number is given out to only a select few. Besides Freni and Susannah, the only folks who have officially been given the number are the crŠme de la crŠme of celebrityhood. If it wasn't Babs this time, I knew it had to be Brad. His recent split was the pits, and although it may be bony, mine is a broad shoulder to cry on.
"Babs?" I asked breathlessly.
"Uh" - a phone rang in the background - "Hold on a minute please," a male voice said.
I foolishly held on.
"Uh - okay, I'm back. Sorry about that."
"Brad?" It didn't sound like him, but crying will do that to you.
"Uh - this is Stuart. May I please speak to Magdalena Yoder."
My stomach did a sudden flip-flop, which had nothing to do with Freni's flop of a meal. The caller had pronounced my surname to rhyme with "otter." There were only two possibilities that came to mind; either one of my celebrity friends could not be trusted and had shared my number with a friend, or one of my celebrity friends couldn't be trusted and had sold me out to the paparazzi. Whichever the case, you can be sure that some high-ranking politician or Hollywood personality was going to pay dearly for his or her judgment in error. I know, vengeance is God's call, not mine, but there is nothing in Scripture that says the Good Lord doesn't use common folks like me to mete out his divine judgment. A well-placed rumor, early morning phone calls, a five-pound sack of dandelion seeds - the possibilities were endless.
"I have no comment," I screeched. "You, on the other hand, have a lot to say for yourself. Who are you, and how did you get this number?"
during the ensuing silence, the tobacco lobby down in Washington saw the error of their ways, and Joan Collins won the Nobel prize for literature.
"Uh - like I said, this is Stuart. I'm calling on behalf of Tight As A Drum Basement Enterprises."
"What?"
"This is a courtesy call We've had - "
"How can this be a courtesy call when you just interrupted my lunch?"
"Uh - ma'am, we've had a lot of reports lately from homeowners on your street who say their basements have been flooded. Have you noticed any dampness in yours?"
"I don't live on a street, dear, I live on a country lane."
"Maybe so, ma'am, but many of your neighbors have reported leaky and flooded basements. Uh - when would be a good time for one of our representatives to come out and look your situation over/ Let's see, I can squeeze you in tomorrow at - "
It was time to have a little fun. "I don't think that's possible for my neighbors' basements to flood, dear. We live on the peak of a high mountain - you might even say that our homes cling to the crags. If my neighbors' basements are flooded, then the town of Bedford is under water, along with New York City and the entire Eastern Seaboard - in which case, don't you have bigger fish to catch?"
"Miss Yotter, I'm just doing my job."
"Your job is to intrude into people's homes and lie about their neighbors' basements?"
"I'm not lying," Stuart snapped. "That's what my information says."
"Well then, dear, who are some of these homeowners with leaky basements?"
"I'm not at liberty to say, ma'am."
"Why not? If my neighbors' basements are being flooded, I need to know so I can help out. You know, like go ark-shopping for them. Round up animals two by two."
Stuart sighed. "Miss Yotter, are you mocking me?"
"Of course, dear."
"I thought so. Well, let me tell you something, lady. You can't have it both ways."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You can't bitch about my generation being lazy, but then when we get jobs, yell at us, or worse yet, mock us like you were just doing."
I swallowed back my irritation at the B word. "Surely there are other jobs out there besides telephone sales."
"Hey, if I don't do this job, somebody else will. So what difference does it make?"
"I'm sure there were a few Nazis who said the same thing."
"Nazis? Are you crazy, lady? I don't have to take this, you know."
"Neither do I, dear. Now before I hang up, how did you get my telephone number?"
"That's privileged information, ma'am."
"You're darn tooting," I said. That's as close as I ever come to swearing. "My telephone number is privileged information. Now, if you don't want to tell me, put your supervisor on the phone."
In the silence that followed, Dennis Rodman learned manners, Jerry Springer acquired good taste, and Tamar Myers's latest book was nominated for an Agatha Christie award.
"Uh - well, my supervisor just stepped out."
"Tell you what, dear. You give me your telephone number and I'll call you back in ten minutes. Maybe your supervisor will have stepped back in by then."
Stuart hung up.
I hadn't gotten as far as my bedroom door when the phone rang a third time. Stuart was persistent, I'd grant him that. It would be a shame to let such an admirable quality go unrewarded.
I snatched up the still warm receiver. "You were absolutely right, dear! Help! The water's getting higher. It's up to my knees now. Oh, no, it's up to my waist - no, make that my throat! Glug. Glug."
"Pull the plug."
"What?"
"Pull the plug," Melvin Stoltzfus said. "That's what I did, the time I almost drowned. Had to figure the damned thing out myself though. Mama refused to tell me."
"Melvin! What are you doing on my private line?"
"Susannah gave it to me, remember? Look, Yoder, I don't have time for idle chitchat. Are you still drowning, or can we talk now? This is official police business."
"Babble away, dear." While he lectured and hectored I would think of all the possible ways to pull Melvin's plug. Such thoughts were a sin, of course, but I'd been nursing some major grudges lately - most having to do with my slime-sucking, pseudo-ex-husband Aaron. As long as I was going to take the Good Lord's time confessing my sins, I may as well make it worth His while.
"The coroner just called, Yoder. I tried to call you on the other line. Where were you?"
"Eating lunch." One way to pull Melvin's plug was to put bug poison in his food. As a mantis, he would be especially susceptible.
"Still eating? I told everyone they had to be back here by one. It's quarter after right now."
"Freni got into one of her funks." It was close enough. Anyway, I'm sure lots of Freni's funks have gone by unrecorded. And please note, I did not blab to Melvin about Barbara's delicate condition.
"Yeah, well, see that you get them here A.S.A.P."
"I am not your flunky, dear," I said with remarkable restraint.
My Christian charity was wasted on Melvin. "Aren't you even going to ask what the coroner had to say?"
I was stunned. Melvin was itching to share, which wasn't like him. Whatever the coroner had to say must really be good.
"So, dear, what did the coroner say?"
"The coroner declared Mr. Mitchell officially dead."
"Permanently?" Tit for tat for the twit.
"Very funny, Yoder. Do you want to hear the rest or not?"
"Absolutely."
"Like I was about to say, he removed wood fragments from the deceased's forehead."
"Hmm."
"He said one of them was red."
"No kidding, you - "
"Red paint, Yoder. What do you think I am, a twit?"
I sat down heavily. What did happen to my barn door prop? Could that possibly be the murder weapon, and if so, where was it now?
"It wouldn't make me liable, would it?" I asked, thinking aloud.
"Yoder, are you there? I mean all there?"
"Look who's calling the kettle black. So, did the coroner have anything else to say?"
"Hold onto your hat, Yoder. This is the good part." He was positively gleeful. "Are you sitting down, Yoder?"
"Yes," I said quietly. I had a hunch this was going to be bad, and I had long since learned that a hunch from a woman is worth two facts from a man.
He took a deep, dramatic breath. "The knife blade was still embedded in the back of his neck."
"Get out of town!"
"No kidding. It had broken off, of course. It was stuck in his vertebrae."
"How gruesome." A vision of George Mitchell's dancing eyes played across my mind's screen, and I blinked to dislodge it.
"Wait," Melvin said, "it gets eve better. Doc said it looked like some kind of kitchen knife. But one with a short blade. Mama has one of those - what does she call it - oh, yeah, a paring knife."
