Everyone agreed, including myself, that it was long past time they hit the road. I surprised them by dashing into the kitchen and returning with sack lunches. "They're all the same," I said pointedly. "Oatmeal batter bread sandwiches with strawberry preserves, and peanut butter cookies."
"Better not be any eggs in here," growled Jeanette.
"Did you use organic peanut butter in the cookies?" asked Linda.
I smiled benevolently. "Of course, dear." I wasn't lying, either. I'd checked my dictionary before going to bed the night before. According to Webster, organic things were those that were, or had been, alive and that contained carbon. Even the off- brand of peanut butter I bought used peanuts that had once been alive and contained carbon. Of course, it is quite possible that
Linda meant to ask if the peanuts had been grown by the aid of organic fertilizers and without pesticides. But that's not what she said, was it? So, in the words of Susannah, "Tough cookies."
Speaking of Susannah, I hadn't even had a chance to sit down again after the others left, when she came billowing into the room. Everything billows about Susannah, except for her bosom, which is even smaller than mine, and barely capable of bobbing, much less billowing.
We grunted our greetings. That's more than can be said for most sisters who don't get along and have good reason for feeling crabby when they meet. My crabbiness was understandable, of course. As to the origin of Susannah's, I didn't have a clue.
"Get up on the wrong side of my bed?"
Susannah sat down and began picking at the remains of Billy Dee's breakfast. "I wouldn't have gotten up at all if the idiots above me had kept the noise down."
"What do you mean?" The idiot above my bedroom happened to be Garrett Ream.
Susannah, the true scavenger, sucked at a strip of Billy Dee's half-eaten bacon. "What I mean," she said irritably, "is that
Mr. Big-shot Congressman and his goody-two-shoes, Barbie-doll of a wife were having a knock-down, drag-out fight."
"He hit her?"
"How should I know? I didn't see it. I heard it."
"What did they say?" Contrary to what you may be thinking, I have a right to know what goes on in my establishment.
"What's it to ya, Mags?"
"A fresh stack of pancakes and all the bacon you can suck - I mean, eat."
"Deal." Susannah took Shnookums out of the nether reaches of her billowiness and set him down on Billy Dee's syrupy plate, which he proceeded to lick clean.
"Well?" I asked, after a great deal of patience had expired.
"Well, he accused her of having a thing for that cute aide of his. What's his name?"
"Delbert James."
"Yeah, him. Of course she denied it. But that wasn't the interesting part."
"What was it, then?"
"I'm getting to it! The interesting part was when she said something about him having had an affair with Ms. Bitchy-Pants.
You know, the one with the red hair."
"Jeanette Parker?"
"Mags, would you stop interrupting me? Anyway, I nearly fell out of bed laughing when I heard that. I thought I might even have heard wrong, but no, she said it again."
I was sure Susannah had heard wrong. As obnoxious as they both were, I couldn't, by any stretch of the imagination, see the Congressman being attracted to a woman like Jeanette. Not when he had the charming Lydia for a wife. I decided to push my luck with Susannah. 'What exactly were her words?" I begged.
"See, you don't believe me!"
At that my baby sister scooped up her sticky-footed stowaway and stashed him back in the nether reaches from whence he'd come.
"I do believe you!" I protested.
"How much?"
I can only be pushed so far. "Enough to not kick you out of my room and make you sleep on the floor in the parlor."
Susannah stuck her tongue out at me but cooperated nonetheless. "Her exact words were: 'You're the one who slept with
Jeanette Parker, maybe it's you who should pay the price.' Something very close to that at any rate."
I sat down heavily, like the proverbial ton of bricks. "Anything else interesting?"
Susannah took a minute to coo at Shnookums in his dank and undoubtedly dreary hideaway. "Yeah," she said finally.
"Lydia Ream said something about Jeanette being Linda's mother."
"Aha! So they're not, uh, I mean - "
"Lesbian lovers?"
"Susannah!"
"Oh, Mags, you are so provincial. This is the nineties. Why don't you get with the times like I am!"
"You are a wanton woman, Susannah."
"And you're egg drop soup." Susannah laughed heartily at her own little joke. Her bony, braless bosom bobbed up and down like a fishing cork on Miller's pond. From somewhere within the powdered plumage of her cascading costume Shnookums sneezed. "Bless you."
"Thank you," said Susannah on Shnookums's behalf. 'What's more, Magdalena, you don't even know the half of it. What else I heard will really knock your socks off. It did mine."
"Enlighten me," I begged. Susannah watches "Geraldo" and reads those magazines that describe two-headed aliens mating with farm animals. Nothing short of amputation could separate her from her socks.
"Can I borrow the car this morning if I tell you? I want to go shoe shopping in Somerset."
I cringed at the mention of shoes, "Susannah, don't you think it would be prudent to save your pennies, especially at the moment?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean... because,.. well... you know, there might be a lawsuit."
Susannah laughed so hard that I truly feared for Shnookums's life. "You don't honestly believe there is going to be a lawsuit, do you, Mags?" she finally managed to say.
"I most certainly do. I mean, there is a chance."
"Some chance! Mags, you really should watch more TV. They have to prove negligence in a suit. It can't just be because the stairs are steep."
"And there is the banister," I reminded her.
"Exactly. So you see, you don't have a thing to worry about, do you?"
"I sure hope you're right. But I still don't think shop- ping is such a good idea right now."
"Maybe not for you," said Susannah wickedly. "The inn is in your name, not mine. Remember?"
"Thanks a lot!" But she had a point. I was the responsible adult. Call me an enabler, but Susannah, despite her burgeoning years, is not capable, much less culpable, which is precisely why Mama and Papa left the inn to me.
"Come on, Mags, let me have the car," Susannah begged, "and I promise to tell you that juicy bit of information that is guaranteed to knock your socks off."
"Okay," I said at last. The gas tank was almost empty, and Hernia didn't have a full-service station. Since Susannah would rather go to church than pump; her own gas, it was a safe bet that she wasn't going to get very far.
"Goody!" cried Susannah. She rubbed her hands gleefully together and then cupped them to her mouth like a little girl about to gossip to her best friend. "Not only is that awful Jeanette Linda's mother," she whispered, "but Congressman Ream is her father."
"Come on!" I'm almost positive I felt at least a tug on my hose.
"I kid you not. And not only that, but I think Jeanette's been blackmailing the Congressman. I think she's been putting the screws on him for years. Her showing up yesterday was no coincidence. And you know what else? I think the Congressman's wife has known about this all along, but for some stupid reason she won't or can't divorce him. That's what I think. "
"You think? You think? Susannah, blackmail is a serious crime. You can't be making allegations like that based on things you heard through the ceiling. I can't believe Lydia Ream would put up with such a sordid situation."
"I have news for you, Sis. Lydia Ream is not the saint you make her out to be. I heard her telling her husband that it was his turn to start paying, remember? And she didn't sound like a choir member when she said it either. In fact, she used words that you have probably never even heard of. It's obvious that she's mad as hell about the blackmail and isn't going to take it anymore."
"I think they call that circumstantial evidence." "You are such a skeptic, Mags. You don't believe anything unless you have pages of documentation."
"I still don't believe Shnookums is a dog. Circumstantial evidence leads me to believe that he is a species of hairy rat."
"That does it!" Susannah stood up in a billowy huff and stormed from the table. At the doorway she stopped. "And one more thing, Miss Yoder, Billy Dee Grizzle already has a girlfriend, and Delbert James just happens to be gay!"
"And so is Shnookums!" I screamed at her back. Any animal psychiatrist would have a field day with a canine that was perpetually carried around in a purse or a half-empty bra.
To my disappointment, Susannah didn't respond to my last remark. Shnookums, however, did. I didn't get a chance to see the puddle the nervous little pooch produced, but Susannah bolted for the bathroom, and later on I found that pile of polyester swirls she'd been wearing crammed into my hamper.
12
The second my car, with Susannah at the wheel, disappeared from sight, I bolted up the steep stairs of my gloriously empty inn and headed straight for the sealed- off room. It was a little tricky getting the orange tape off the doorjamb in such a way that I could replace it without anyone's being the wiser. Only a sharp-eyed detective would notice my tampering when I was through, and even Chief Myers, God bless him, wasn't that perceptive. If he was, he would undoubtedly have noticed that his wife, Tammy, had knock-knees, a mouth like a mule, and brayed when she laughed. He should have bought her a saddle instead of that engagement ring, back when we were in high school.
I don't know what I expected to find in Miss Brown's room. I simply started looking through her things, which, with the exception of a pair of rinsed-out hose hanging on the towel rack, a pair of brown house slippers with gray piping, and the shoes and dress she'd worn the day before, were all still in her suitcase. Her purse had apparently been taken by the Chief.
That her suitcase was locked didn't slow me down a bit. Every Mennonite girl worth her bonnet knows how to wield a hairpin with the skill of a surgeon. I had that drab little valise open in less time than it takes Freni to smile, not that it did me any good. Two beige bras, two mostly white pairs of panties, a gray sweater, a pair of brown slacks, an oatmeal-colored blouse, and a toothbrush didn't tell me a whole lot more than I already knew - except that she wore a size ten panty, which meant that her dress had done a fine job of disguising her big caboose.
Out of habit I started to make her bed, which had apparently been slept in, but then caught myself.
Corpses aren't known for their bed-making skills, especially after they've been carted off to the morgue. Hernia might not have the sharpest police department around, but they weren't complete slouches either. At least that's what I thought back then.
I took one last quick look around. None of my furnishings had disappeared. The cheaply framed print of "The Angelus" still hung on the wall, the Gideon Bible remained on the desk, and in the bathroom I could still see two towels. There were even two drinking glasses on the sink instead of the usual one, which was quite all right with me. Any guest who wanted to leave usable items behind was welcome to do so.
If I must say so myself, I did a superb job of replacing the tape. Only a slight wrinkle on the end of one of the strips betrayed my intrusion, and for all I know, it had already been there.
The next item on my agenda was to call the phone numbers Miss Brown had listed on her guest application. Of course, they were toll calls, but what's a buck or two when you are about to lose your shirt - make that a blouse - to the cleaners?
I called the number listed as her residence first. After about the fourth ring a mechanical voice, supposedly female, got on the line, told me my call could not be completed as dialed, and then proceeded to lecture me on how I should consult my phone directory in the future.
The second call, to her place of business, was slightly more satisfying. That call was answered on the second ring by a rather hearty-sounding male voice. "Jumbo Jim's Fried Chicken and Seafood Palace," it said. "Jim speaking."
"Is this the workplace of Miss Heather Brown?" I asked.
"I'm sorry, but you must have a wrong number," said Jumbo Jim. He had a very pleasant voice, sort of like the Chiefs, but with just a tinge of southern twang.
"Is this 410-555-3216?"
"Correcto. And what's your number, doll?"
Of course I was taken aback. "I don't give my number to strangers."
