"This is Martha, Mags. Martha Sims."
"Ah, that me. Well, Martha, you have exactly three seconds to explain how on earth you got my private number, and then three more seconds to apologize for having called it."
"Now, don't you be getting bent all out of shape, Mags. I simply wanted - "
"One-two-three, and my shape is just fine, thanks." I slammed the phone down.
The second time it rang I didn't pick it up until the tenth ring. "Well?"
"Susannah gave us your number, Mags. Back when t she was dating that sweet young man who belonged to our church. If - "
Slam.
The third time Martha apologized right away, and profusely. Some people just need limits set for them.
"You already said you were sorry six times. Now, why is it you're calling?"
Having learned her lesson, Martha got straight to the point. "I heard about the hairdresser having her baby today. I'm calling to see if Mr. Lapata needs a replacement."
It would boggle your mind if I tried to explain to you how Martha Sims, the Presbyterian minister's wife, had already heard that a devil-worshipping hairdresser from out of state had given birth on a Mennonite farm only hours earlier, but that's Hernia for you.
"Why don't you ask him yourself," I said complacently.
"You mean he's there? Now?"
"It's twelve-thirty a.m., Martha. What kind of woman do you think I am?" Besides flattered, of course.
"Will he be there in the morning?"
"This is the morning, Martha."
She had the nerve to sigh impatiently. "I mean the r real morning. Like ten or eleven. Like that."
"No, Martha, he'll be sailing a yacht from Fiji to Bora Bora. Of course he'll be here."
"Well!" said Martha, and she hung up the phone rudely.
I was too tired to be miffed anymore that night. I was just glad my day was finally over and Martha's call had not turned out to be one from Susannah, stuck at a truck stop. Even though Susannah doesn't have a car, she manages to find her way to various truck stops with some frequency. Needless to say, it's you truckers who transport her there. Next time you come across a thirty-four-year-old woman, five foot nine, about 135 pounds, medium-brown hair, blue eyes, and a lopsided chest, trailing enough yards of fabric to clothe a third-world country, who is looking for a ride, poke her in that lopsided chest and see if it yips. If it does, then that's Susannah, and you'd be well advised to leave her alone. If you don't, and she doesn't manage to make you totally miserable, I will. Fair warning.
Anyway, the last time that happened, I had to drive fifty miles to Shippensburg in the middle of a snowstorm to collect her. Lest you think me a fool and an enabler, I wouldn't have gone, except that Susannah had somehow managed to lose her shoes as well as her purse and coat. Although I was mighty tempted to let her hoof it on home, barefoot, in the snowstorm, thankfully it was the rational side of me that triumphed. With my luck, and Susannah's penchant for screwing up, the next call I received would have been from the North Pole, with an irate Santa accusing my sister of having molested three of his elves. She probably would have been guilty too.
-23-
Bright and early the next morning I headed out to Miller's Peed Store to buy a new pitchfork. The prop department had somehow managed to come up with one for the movie, but Mose would need one to toss hay come winter. Besides which, I needed to plug in to the local gossip circuit if I was going to find out who killed Don Manley. Outside of Norah Hall and my weekly Women's Prayer Circle meetings, Miller's Peed Store dishes up the best gossip this side of Bedford.
Roy Miller is a triple fifth cousin of mine, but I certainly don't claim him. The official rumor has it that he beats his wife, Elspeth. It is common knowledge, however, that it is Elspeth Rhinehart Miller who beats up on Roy. Elspeth is a German-German, not a Swiss-German like most of the Mennonites and Amish in the Hernia area. What's more, she was baptized a Lutheran - as an infant, no less. No Mennonite or Amishman can comprehend such a senseless act. Perhaps it was being splashed with all that water as a tiny baby that put Elspeth in such a foul mood.
One might have more respect for Roy if he didn't allow Elspeth to push him around. A man should listen to his wife (didn't Papa?), but he shouldn't put up with hitting. No one should - not even a true pacifist like Roy. Sadly, the long-sleeved shirts that Roy habitually wears, even on the hottest days, are not a sign of his Mennonite modesty. What makes the whole thing seem even sadder is that Elspeth is a little bitty thing with a beaked nose and horn-rimmed glasses that flare out like butterfly wings. She seems about as dangerous as Shnookums.
The store parking lot was already a sea of buggies by the time I arrived. Since Roy is a distant kinsman, and only sort of English, his store is the number one shopping spot for most of the plain folk in Bedford County. In addition to feed and pitchforks, you can buy bonnets and suspenders. Even wood-burning stoves. Even though she is Church Amish and not as strict as some of her brethren, Freni does almost all her shopping there. Compared to Miller's Feed Store, the Kmart in Bedford is a den of iniquity.
"Goot morgan," I said to all the Yoders, Hostetlers, Masts, and Millers I encountered on my way to the pitchfork display rack. The only person I didn't speak to was Agatha Yost. But since we hadn't been speaking since the fifth grade, when she purposely sat on my peanut butter sandwich, it made no difference.
When I was within feet of the pitchforks, with only a pile of milking pails between me and them, Elspeth swooped down like a great horned owl. "Why, Magdalena Yoder, whatever are you doing in my humble little establishment?"
I reminded myself that the good Lord died for all sinners, including Elspeth, and forced a smile. "I'm here to buy a pitchfork. Care to recommend one?"
Elspeth fluffed a few feathers and then cocked he! head, but she did not regard me wisely. "Tired of shopping at Sam's?"
"Sam Yoder's Corner Market does not carry pitchforks," I reminded her patiently, "only groceries. And anyway, Mose buys all our farm supplies here."
"Yes, so he does. But that's Mose. You, however are a different story. If you want to buy one of our y pitchforks, Magdalena Yoder, then you are going to s have to sign a special register."
"A what?" Because of all the background noise, I was sure I was hearing things.
Elspeth scratched her beak officiously with a talon. , "You heard me, Magdalena. You want a pitchfork, you sign a register."
"Do I need a permit as well?" I asked innocently enough. With a Democrat in the White House, anything was possible.
"I wish that were the case. Unfortunately, all I can do is make you sign a register. And notify Chief Stoltzfus, of course."
"Tell Mel and I'll - "
"You'll what? Kill me?" Beady eyes flashed accusingly behind the flaring rims of her glasses.
I tried to swallow my anger. When dealing with Elspeth, it doesn't take long to fill up. "I did not kill Don Manley!"
Elspeth arranged her face into what I supposed was a smug smile. "You threatened him, didn't you? There were witnesses, you know."
That did it. If the pot wants to call the kettle black, that's one thing. But Elspeth is a virtual coal bin of aggression. Everyone in Hernia has heard Elspeth threaten Roy, and knows that she sometimes carries out those threats. Sometimes before their very eyes.
I struggled valiantly to temper my temper with Christian charity. "You two-bit hypocrite! How dare you accuse me of violence. Have you registered your fists in that precious register of yours?"
Beady eyes bulged behind the horn-rims. "You big damn bitch!" She took a step forward and prodded me, right on the breastbone, with one of her talons. "Get out of my store."
"I saw nothing," said Jacob. Not only did he have he nerve to turn and walk away, but he sounded disappointed to boot.
"I only heard you, I didn't see you, Magdalena." I made a mental note to ask Rachel to return the waffle iron she borrowed from Mama in 1963.
"Well, surely one of you saw it." I turned slowly around, so that each in turn could see the pain and anguish on the victim's visage. Apparently, they were not impressed. Each in turn turned and walked away, leaving me alone with the evil Elspeth.
"Hoo-ha!" she hooted. She flapped about noisily in her glee. "So you're not the big shot you think you are, are you? No, of course not! You're just a two-bit bed-and-breakfast owner who's gotten too big for her britches. Now, get out of my store before I give them all a chance to see nothing again."
I would have pondered longer what to do, but one of the pails had given me a pounding headache. I cannot be blamed, then, for appearing to leave at Elspeth's request. Needless to say, Miller's Feed Store would never have my business again. Neither would Freni or Mose ever darken that doorway, not if I could help it. Even if I had to drive all the way to Somerset to buy a bag of seed potatoes next spring, I determined never to let one more coin of mine clank into that cursed coffer.
I had just stepped outside into the warm, welcoming sunshine, when I nearly tripped again. This time it was not a pile of pails that impeded my progress, but my milk-livered cousin himself, Roy Miller.
"Pssst, Magdalena." I caught my balance by clutching at the comer of a buggy parked too near the door. It must have been an old buggy, because a swatch of heavy black canvas tore off in my hand. Hopefully the buggy belonged to Jacob Beiler. I dropped the swatch and caught my breath. " 'Pssst' is something they say in books, Roy, not something real live folks say to one another."
"Pssst," he said again. He crooked and flexed his index finger several times, and then just as dramatically slipped out of sight around the side of the store.
Foolishly, I followed him. Roy Miller might not be able to stand up to his diminutive wife, but that didn't preclude any dangerous dementia on his part. He was, after all, my blood kin. Anyway, it was a bright, sunny day, and the birds in the overhead maples were singing their little heads off. Since we all have to check out sometime, it may as well be under these conditions.
I need not have worried. Roy wanted only to talk. "You won't sue us, will you, Magdalena?"
"I suppose not this time," I said reluctantly. I wasn't sure if one had to have witnesses to sue, and even if not, it really wasn't the Christian thing to do. My branch of the faith exhorts me to turn the other cheek when I am accosted.
Roy breathed a deep sigh of relief. "I'm awfully sorry about the fall you took. Really I am. If - "
"It wasn't a fall, Roy. I was pushed."
He blinked nervously. "Yeah, well, what I really wanted to say is that the other day there was a man from that movie company looking at the pitchforks, and it must have been him who turned that fork around. I've been meaning to hang it back right, but I just haven't had time."
If I had kept my mouth open any longer, Sophie Shrock's bees could have built their hive inside it. "What man? What was his name?" I asked as soon as I regained the use of my most valuable asset.
"Don't remember exactly," said Roy, brightening, "but I think it had something to do with insects."
Melvin Stoltzfus flitted through my mind, but surely Melvin had no idea I thought of him as a praying mantis. "You mean like a bug? That kind of insect?"
"That's it! Bug Somebody. You know him? Is he famous?"
I hate it when I snort derisively. It is so unflattering, given my rather long teeth. "More like infamous, I'd say. And don't get your knickers in a knot, Roy, he is not an actor. Rumor has it he might have Mafia connections. Of course all this is hush-hush. You understand?"
Roy nodded happily. Spreading rumors was one thing he undoubtedly did better than his wife.
"Tell me, Roy, was Bugsy looking at the pitchfork before or after Don Manley was murdered?"
Roy's usually placid face contorted with concentration. "Well, let's see. I think it was just after Mabel's Ediger bought the fifty-pound bag of pickling salt. Or was it paraffin? Yes, it had to be the paraffin, because Mabel didn't put in cucumbers this year."
"Praise God," I said in all sincerity. Mabel's homemade pickles would make a pig pucker, and she not only serves them at all the church suppers, but insists that everyone have a helping or two.
"And it was just before Martha Sims bought - "
"Was it before or after the murder, Roy?" I didn't really raise my voice that loud. It was mere coincidence that the birds stopped singing.
"Uh-uh, before, I think."
"Thanks, Roy."
I walked briskly to my car. I do not run in public. Just before I slammed the door, I could hear those foolish birds start singing again.
I found Steven in the barn, busily blocking out the morning's first scene. He was not at all happy to be interrogated. I'm sure he would have refused altogether, but I threatened to write his mother a detailed account of what Susannah had told me he'd done the night before in Bedford. Of course, I hadn't seen my sleepy-headed sister that morning, but with the Holly- wood crowd, that sort of threat is a sure bet.
