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"Did you say paring knife?"
"You got a hearing problem, Yoder? Boy, wait until Mama hears this. Freni Hostetler - her best friend - my number one suspect."
"What?"
"She didn't fool me for a second, Magdalena. You're the one who insisted that I leave her off my list of suspects. What do you have to say about that now?"
"You're an idiot, that's what! Think for once, Melvin. You know Freni. You know her almost as well as you know your own mother. Could your mother kill a man?"
"You're damned straight she could. Only Mama is smarter than Freni. She would have used a rolling pin instead of barn siding. Much less likely to leave splinters with a rolling pin."
"Melvin! I'm telling!"
I distinctly heard him gulp. "I was just kidding, of course. But I'm not about Freni. Have her come in with the rest."
"I most certainly will not. You're a sandwich short of a picnic, dear, if you think a seventy-five-year-old Amish woman stabbed George Mitchell with her paring knife."
"Oh, year? You can't argue with evidence, Yoder." Doc said it was definitely a paring knife."
"There are four other cooks staying at the inn, for crying out loud. That knife could have belonged to any of them."
The mantis mulled that for a minute. "Did any of the others bring paring knifes with them?"
It was perhaps the most reasonable question Melvin had ever asked, and as such, it deserved a straight answer.
"Yes."
"Yes?" Melvin sounded as shocked and pathetic as Susannah did when I told her that Santa Clause wasn't real. Susannah, however, was married at the time and at least had a spouse to turn to for comfort.
"So you see, it could have been someone other than Freni."
"Did they all bring knives?"
"How should I know? I didn't make them fill out inventory lists."
"But you know of at least one who brought a knife, right?"
"Uh - right."
I could hear the malevolent mandibles mashing against the mouthpiece. "So who was it, Yoder?"
"I'm not at liberty to say."
"What the hell do you - "
"Don't swear, Melvin, or I'll never tell."
"You tell me, Yoder, or I'll arrest you."
"On what grounds?"
"Obstructing justice."
I cast about for something soothing to say. Unfortunately my brain isn't nearly as sharp as my tongue.
"Look, if you arrest the wrong person on insufficient evidence, you could be sued. We go back a long way, Melvin - I've known you since you were in diapers. We might not always get along, but I care what happens to you." There was truth of a sort in that last statement."
"What are you proposing, Yoder?"
"Give me two hours, Melvin, and I'll tell you who brought a knife and who didn't. I might even tell you more."
"What do you mean by `more'? You know something, don't you, Yoder?"
"Maybe, maybe not. Is it a deal?"
"One hour, Yoder. That's all you get, and that includes driving time. I want you down here in person, at my office, at two-thirty sharp."
"But that's not enough - "
The phone buzzed in my ear. Melvin, the miserable mantis, had hung up.
The fire in the den had burned itself out. There were still clumps of smoldering ashes, and I jabbed them viciously with my poker. I didn't expect to find anything, certainly not a piece of wood still bearing flecks of red paint.
A faint "ping" sent my heart racing. Could it be a nail? The bent nail from the strip of barn siding I once used as a doorjamb? I poked again. Nothing. Perhaps the nail had fallen through the grate. Well, it was certainly too hot to remove the grate, and I was not about to lie on my belly and get a snoot full of ashes.
I put the poker away and hurried back to the dining room. No telling what the mice will do when the cat is away. Especially English mice. I had a hunch this pack of rodents was up to no good.
My hunch was half right. I couldn't believe my eyes when I flung open the door. There, in the dining room, was Freni, frolicking with the guests - like they were equals for crying out loud! She was laughing loudly and hopping about like a toad on hot sand. It was unseemly behavior for a ten-year-old Methodist girl, much less an Amish woman in her seventies. I stood silently in the doorway for a minute watching these shameless antics.
"Twins," Ms. Holt said, as if it were a dirty word.
"Have they picked out any names yet?" Gladys asked.
"Yah," Freni said, without a second's hesitation, "Freni for the girl and Mose for the boy."
"Very interesting," I said, stepping forward. "so they know the babies' sex already?"
"Ach!" Freni blushed from her prayer cap to tips of her brogans, but she recovered as quickly as Aaron did after you-know-what. "Shame on you, Magdalena, for scaring an old woman like that."
I smiled smugly. "This morning when I talked to Barbara she didn't know the sex. And what's this I hear about twins? Barbara didn't say anything about twins."
Freni's face fell like a souffl‚ when the oven door is slammed. "You were telling the truth/ No twins?"
"It is not twins," I said. My fingers were crossed of course, since triplets often include a set of twins.
"That's too bad," Gladys said kindly. "but maybe it will be a girl and they can name it Freni anyway."
"Maybe there'll be a girl," I said, "but if they named her after Freni, they might well call her Veronica. Freni is the Pennsylvania Dutch diminutive of that name."
"What is Mose short for?" Art asked. "Moses?"
"Exactly. But Mose isn't short, only Freni is," I said wickedly.
"Ach!" Freni fled to the kitchen, her apron strings flapping behind her.
I followed. Freni heard me coming and scurried to the far corner and pretended to be searching for something in a cupboard.
"Looking for something, dear?"
"Just leave me alone, Magdalena."
I tugged on her apron until she turned. "Melvin just called. The coroner just called him. It seems he found the blade of a paring knife still in George Mitchell's neck."
"Ach! I didn't do it, Magdalena. Do you want to count my paring knives? I have two. Three, if you count the one Mose's mother gave me when we got married, but it wouldn't cut butter on a summer day."
I patted her arm reassuringly. "I believe you do, dear. But it's alma I'm not so sure about."
"Alma? But she's family."
"Her family scalped our family, dear, when all our family did was buy land that someone else had stolen from her family. But that's beside the point. She claims to have lost her paring knife, remember?"
"Yah, but anyone could have taken it. There aren't any locks on these drawers."
"You're right, anyone could have taken it. Now we just need to convince Melvin of that."
Freni pulled her arm away. "You told Melvin about Alma losing her knife?"
"Please, dear, do I look that stupid?"
"He's given me one hour to come up with a suspect. If I don't have a sacrificial victim for him by two-thirty, then he's going to pick the person who looks to him like the most obvious suspect."
Freni's eyes grew behind her rimless glasses. "Who?"
"You, dear."
"Ach!" Freni clutched the bib of her apron. "I can't go to jail now, Magdalena. Not with little Freni on the way."
"You're not going to go to jail, dear. You're his mama's best friend, remember? But he will give you a hard time, that's for sure. Freni, when you were spending time with Alma this morning, did she seem at all - well, nervous?"
My stout cook and cousin stamped her right foot. "That woman is the salt of the earth. She did not kill Mr. Mitchell. You're barking up the wrong post, Magdalena."
"That's tree, dear."
"Try barking up the tree with red leaves, Magdalena."
"Excuse me?"
"The one with the fancy shmancy clothes."
"Ms. Holt?"
"Yah, that's the one. She keeps her knives in her room."
"Really?"
Freni nodded and bade me step closer by wagging a crooked finger. "You should see the tings she brought with her. Pots and pans made out of glass! Who ever heard of such a thing? I gave her a drawer for utensils, but she didn't put a single knife in it. She said keeping knives in drawers made them dull."
"So where does she keep her knives?"
"In a box. It's in her room, on the dresser next to her bed."
"Did you get a peek inside the box?"
"Ach," Freni said indignantly. "What do you think I am, a snoop?"
"Certainly not, dear. Well, I guess it's time for me to grill Ms. Holt. By the time I'm through with her, she'll be like the weenie that fell off the stick and landed in the coals."
"Be careful not to burn your fingers," Freni said wisely.
Kimberly McManus Holt was definitely sucking sherbet through a straw when I returned to the dining room. I tried to beckon her discreetly away from the table, but she was not a cooperative weenie. I had no choice but to be straightforward.
"Ms. Holt, may I have word with you?"
She slurped a final time and patted the corners of her mouth with her napkin. "Certainly."
"Alone, dear."
She glanced around at others and smiled stiffly. "is that really necessary?"
I simply had no more time to waste. "not if you don't mind being grilled like a weenie."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Let's just say that I'm doing a little legwork for Police Chief Stoltzfus. I have some questions to ask you. Some of the questions might not be to your liking. Now, I can as you them here, in front of the others, or we can retire to the parlor where we can have some privacy."
She trotted after me like a well-trained poodle. Before we sat, I stoked the fire and threw on another log. If you're going to roast a hotdog, do it right.
"Ms. Holt, did you bring a paring knife with you to the PennDutch?"
She arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "This is your question? The one we needed privacy for?"
"Just answer the question, please," I said.
I wasn't sure she had heard me at first over the sound of grinding teeth. But after a minute she cocked her head and smiled.
"Of course I brought a paring knife with me."
"Just one?"
:Of course not. Every cook worth her salt has a wide inventory of knives, several of which can be loosely termed paring knives. Although, as we all know, not all knives are created qually."
"Excuse me?"
"There are knives, and then there are knives."
"I've always hated riddles, dear."
She rolled her eyes, a shocking gesture in a woman whose mascara probably cost as much as the dress on my back. "Never skimp on quality. When it comes to knives, there is only one brand to buy - Ridgeworth."
Well, la-de-da. Imagine being proud of some stupid old knives. Mama had only one paring knife, one butcher knife, and a bread knife. Yet humble little Freni owned three paring knives, and at least a handful of others. Although, to be honest, if you compared their cooking. Mama would only rank as a three-knife cook. Freni was definitely an eight, present lunch excepted.
"Ah, yes of course, Ridgeworth," I said. "now, dear, Freni tells me that you prefer not to keep your knives in the kitchen."
A perfectly plucked brow arched ever so slightly. "Is there a rule that says I have to?"
"Absolutely not. It's just that I'd like to have a look at what you brought, if you don't mind."
"Whatever for?"
I had two options: lie, and tell her I wanted to buy a set of replacement knives for Freni for Christmas; or I could tell her the truth, make her really angry, and maybe never get to see an honest-to-goodness Ridgeworth knife. If pressed, I will admit to lying, but only because I'd already racked up so many spiritual demerits for the day, I didn't think it would make much difference. I really did intend to make it right with the Lord, just as soon as I could catch my breath.
If tortured, I might go so far as to say that my lie was worth any consequences a lie of that caliber might exact. In words that Susannah might use, Ms. Holt's knife set was totally awesome. The mahogany and brass box, lined with blue velvet, no doubt cost more than Mama's and Papa's coffins combined. Boy did that make me feel guilty. Anyway, tearing my eyes away from the knife box was hard enough, but those knives! Who knew that just looking at steel could give so much pleasure? And those handles - could they possibly be ivory?
