by Tamar Myers
“Gay as in happy, or the Rosie O’Donnell way?”
“Rosie’s way—although of course I’m not a lesbian. But I loved Anne like a sister.”
I’m a God-fearing woman, one who reads her Bible on a daily basis. I will not, however, poke my proboscis into other folks’ sex lives. Who am I to judge, after all? And no, I am not referring to my ill-fated marriage to Aaron, but my three-legged Maytag washer. I innocently thought I could hold the renegade machine in place during spin cycle by sitting on it. I was right, of course—it’s just that—well, like I said, I’m not one to judge.
“Ivan, please tell me the circumstances of you finding her. Where she was, where you were, what happened, etcetera.”
“I was in my room reading.”
“Oh?”
“Miss Yoder, just because I’m a big guy, and a chauffeur, doesn’t mean I don’t like to read.”
“All I said was ‘oh.’ ”
“But you meant something else.”
“What were you reading?” I asked pleasantly. “Plato.”
“A comic book?” Yes, it was hard to keep the sarcasm from my voice.
“The philosopher.”
“Oh.”
“I was brushing up on the Apology.”
“No need to apologize, dear; I’m the one who jumped to conclusions. So, Ivan, you were reading. Then what?”
“I heard a thump coming from the room next door—the colonel’s room—and since there wasn’t supposed to be anyone in there, I went to investigate. That’s when I found Anne. She was lying on the floor.”
“In what position?”
“Huh?”
“Facedown, on her back, what?”
“On her back. Mostly. Her head and shoulders were propped up against the side of the bed. Sort of like she’d slid off.”
“And she was dead at this point?”
“Yes, ma’am. Near as I could tell—I checked her pulse.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I called 911, of course. Then I scooped her up. Held her in my arms. That’s what I was doing when you came in.”
“There was, of course, no one else in the room when you came in.”
He blinked. “That’s right. No one.”
“But she’d obviously struggled with someone—”
“Miss Yoder, how do you feel about snakes?”
I shuddered. Satan was a serpent, wasn’t he? I know—it’s unreasonable of me, but I practically jump out of my brogans every time I see a harmless garter snake.
“I despise them, dear.”
“Then I’m afraid you have a big problem, Miss Yoder.”
I did an involuntary triple lutz. “Where? Is there a snake in this jail?”
“No, ma’am, but there’s a very large one in your house.”
23
Aaron Miller had been a snake—in more ways than one—but he was long gone. Ivan Yetinsky had to be talking about a real snake, one with scales and a flickering tongue.
“What kind of snake? Where?”
“It’s a twenty-five-foot African rock python named Charlie. I wish I knew where he was at the moment.”
I chuckled, obliging at his little joke.
“Why are you laughing, Miss Yoder?”
“Because I thought you said there was a python loose at the inn.”
“I did.”
Although I was looking at the muscular man, I felt like he had sneaked around me and punched me on the soft spots behind my knees. I had to struggle to remain standing, and given that I am a bit on the lofty side, I swayed like a white pine during an Arctic Express. A lumberjack observing the scene might have been tempted to shout “timber.”
“But that’s impossible,” I heard myself say.
I thought my voice sounded far away, like it was coming from another room. Apparently it was coming from another room, but as an echo. While I was still reeling from shock, Zelda burst into the hallway that fronted the cells, her gun drawn from its holster.
“What the hell is going on here? Magdalena, why are you dancing?”
“I’m not dancing,” I wailed. “I’m in shock.”
“She needs to sit,” Ivan said.
Zelda’s Swiss-German bloodlines have made her so rigid that when she buys the proverbial farm, the onset of rigor mortis will be useless in pinpointing the time of death. “She needs to go home, that’s what.”
“And not tell you about Melvin?” I squeaked.
Zelda was tom between duty and desire. “Does this have anything to do with Miss Thrope’s murder?”
“It wasn’t a murder,” Ivan said.
Just the thought of what he implied made me woozy. I swayed even harder, which was clearly a threat to Zelda, over whom I towered. Should I topple, a direct blow could shatter her makeup, perhaps finally revealing Jimmy Hoffa.
“Let me get a chair,” she growled. She was back in a jiffy with her desk chair. “Sit. But you better make this good.”
I plunked my patooty in the plastic seat. “He says there’s a giant boa constrictor loose at the PennDutch. Apparently it’s what killed Miss Thrope.”
Ivan stood and approached the bars. “It’s an African rock python, not a boa. They both kill by constriction, but boa constrictors are from the Americas. Incidentally, neither of them are poisonous.”
Zelda appeared to take him seriously. “Then how did this African snake get into Magdalena’s inn?”
“It was the colonel’s pet.”
“But I don’t allow pets! Certainly not snakes.” I did bend the rules for Jacko, but guanacos are such cuddly-looking creatures. Besides, he promised to teach me how to moonwalk. Of course that was a huge mistake. I can barely move my clodhoppers forward in a straight line, much less backwards, and despite Jacko’s assurances, guanaco guano was not that easy to get out of the carpet.
Ivan spread his ham-size mitts in a gesture of appeasement. “He had that snake as long as I worked for him. Said he got it as a baby. Never went anywhere without it.”
“What did it eat?” Zelda asked. “People?”
The chauffeur started to laugh, but caught himself just in time. “No, ma’am. Not people. Although a snake the size of Charlie could swallow a child, or a very small adult. In Africa they’ve been known to swallow antelope and goats. The colonel used to feed Charlie live rats, but in recent years it’s been rabbits.”
I shuddered. “How on earth did you get that monster past me without me noticing?”
“That wasn’t easy, ma’am. The colonel made us wait until after you were in bed the first night. But Charlie— he’s heavy. Took all three of us to get him upstairs. Charlie’s cold-blooded, as are all reptiles, and likes to sleep next to the colonel on cool nights, but then sometimes he gets too warm, see, so he drops to the floor. Can make quite a noise. The colonel was worried you might have heard that.”
“Which I did,” I cried. “So that was a snake? A twenty-five-foot snake?”
“Magdalena, calm down.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Zelda. You don’t have Satan’s older brother slithering around in your house.” The policewoman didn’t dare scowl lest she cause an avalanche of loose makeup. But the glitter in her eyes intensified, and I knew she was put out.
“You think you’ve got problems, Magdalena? What about poor Melvin when he discovers he was wrong?” “Don’t worry. He’s used to that.” I turned back to the
grieving hulk. “I heard thumps after the colonel’s death. What was up with that?”
“That was because of Harry.”
“Who?”
“Harry was a rabbit—supposed to be Charlie’s next meal. Don’t know why the colonel insisted on naming Charlie’s meals—always found that part a little strange. Anyway, I’m afraid your register vents aren’t in the best condition. Harry was able to push his way under one and escape. Anne and I took it off altogether so we could catch that damn rabbit, but then Charlie got it into his mind he wanted to eat immediately and... W
ell, there’s really no stopping a snake that big when he’s determined. We tried to wrestle him out of the vent, but it didn’t work. Miss Yoder, you should really put in new screws.”
“So now it’s my fault?”
“If the shoe fits,” Zelda said.
“Is that a jibe?” I can’t help it that the old woman who lives in a shoe used one of my castoffs as her starter home.
“Ladies, please,” Ivan said, “arguing is not going to get Charlie back. Not unharmed. And the colonel said I could have him when the time came.”
“Time for what?” Zelda asked.
“The colonel was dying,” I said.
Ivan smiled. “So you knew.”
“Of course.”
“Why am I not surprised? I sensed the chemistry between you two. So did Anne. She was furious.”
“Well, she needn’t have been. I have a perfectly good man of my own.”
Zelda risked a frown. “What is going on? Magdalena, what are you withholding?”
“Why, nothing, dear. You know all about Gabe.”
The petite, but buxom, officer of the law stamped a foot so tiny a butterfly wouldn’t get drunk imbibing champagne from her shoe. Still, the jolt was enough to send a shower of loose face powder southward.
“One of you get back to that part about the colonel dying.”
“Certainly. The colonel had melanoma. It had gone undiagnosed too long.”
“Hmm.” She was thinking aloud again. With less makeup to muffle the sound, I was going to have plug my ears. “So Magdalena, now we’ve got three possibilities, right?”
“No, dear, just two. It was either the gun or the snake.”
“How do you know?”
“Because one doesn’t just topple over from cancer. Besides, he was well enough to plan a drive into Pittsburgh that day to see some doctors. What you guys need to do is figure what came first, the chicken or the egg.”
“Magdalena, this is no time to talk about your livestock.” I don’t wear a shed of makeup, so I have no compunctions about frowning. “Zelda, dear, the gun or the snake—which came first? That’s something the coroner can figure out. In fact, you should have heard by now.”
“Well, we did get in a couple of faxes, but I always leave them for Melvin. He is the Chief, you know.”
“Of a tribe of two—three, if you count Susannah.”
“Ladies,” Ivan said with unnecessary sharpness, “it was the gun.”
We gave him our full attention. “How do you know?” I asked pleasantly.
“Because the colonel knew how to defend himself. He had to. Snakes aren’t like dogs—they don’t form the same kind of attachments—and African rock pythons are among the most aggressive snakes in the world. But the colonel had cared for him since he was a baby, and knew how to handle him.”
“Imagine that,” Zelda said, “a pet that will attack its master.”
Ivan nodded. “Yeah, but if it had attacked, the colonel would have put up a good fight. Charlie would have too. Pythons don’t chew their food, but they do have recurved teeth for holding their prey. Trust me, there would have been blood everywhere, and not just from the bullet wound. Anyway—”
“Like there was with Anne?” I gave myself a mental slap for having been so insensitive.
“Yeah, like with her. He was getting ready to swallow her—well, try, at any rate. The tail muscles are weakest, so I started there. I basically unwrapped him. Thought for a while he was going to go for me, but when I got him half unwrapped he just let go of Anne and headed back to the vent.”
“Which was tightly in place when you arrived, I assure you,” I said.
“Is he in the vent now?” Zelda asked. It was perhaps her most sensible question all day.
Ivan shrugged. “Or maybe just loose in the inn. Anyway, I was about to say earlier that what probably happened was that the colonel was shot by whoever—and it wasn’t me—and then Charlie crawled out of the vent when he smelled the opportunity.”
“Smelled?” It was Zelda again. Oh well, a latent curiosity was better than none.
“That’s how snakes find their prey. Scent, as well as temperature. They have heat-sensing organs in their jaws, you see. Won’t eat something that’s stone-cold. You can give them a rabbit that’s been frozen, but you have to dip it in boiling water first. My guess is that Charlie smelled the blood from the still warm body, and didn’t give it a thought that it was the colonel. But I’m also guessing—and I’m not an expert here, just know about Charlie—that the colonel was starting to cool down, and that’s why Charlie changed his mind.”
I’d already learned enough about snakes to last me a lifetime. A little more knowledge wasn’t going to kill me.
“The coroner said—”
“You can’t tell him what the coroner said,” Zelda snapped.
I glared at her. I am a humble and peace-loving woman. In fact, I’m proud of my humility and will, if pushed, defend my pacifism tooth and nail. Zelda, however, is what some behaviorists would call an alpha female. Sometimes the only way to deal effectively with an alpha female is to act like one.
“I can and I will,” I said.
“If you do, Melvin will—”
“Let him. Whatever it is, let him. Ivan, dear, the coroner said that the colonel showed signs of being squeezed. I know that pythons constrict their prey, but would they do that even if the prey were dead?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it happen with the rabbits. The frozen ones we heat up. I guess it’s instinct—going through the motions.”
I gasped as a new thought penetrated my thick skull. “You didn’t heat up any rabbits in my kitchen, did you?” Freni is normally an excellent cook, but sometimes she has her off days. It seems that I had been smelling the remnants of a few of her off days recently, or that could have been Miss Thrope’s supposedly gourmet fare.
“Nah. Like I said, Harry escaped down the vent. He was very much alive.”
“Bet he’s not alive now,” Zelda said.
Practice makes perfect, even when it comes to glaring. “What we can extrapolate from all this,” I said, “is that the person who shot the colonel did so just after we left the house. Then several hours later that horrible serpent crawled out of the vent and thought about eating his master. Fortunately he changed his mind.”
With her face already in shreds, Zelda had nothing to lose. She returned my glare.
“And how do we know all this?”
“Because, dear, the human body stays warm to the touch for approximately three hours after death. After four hours it feels cool. We were gone for five.”
This basic information I would have thought any policewoman would know off the top of her spiked and bleached head. Apparently Zelda didn’t. She looked so flustered I felt sorry for her.
“Well, uh—Magdalena, would you mind telling all this to... What I mean is—”
“You want me to set your nincompoop boss straight?”
She nodded, precipitating another shower of cheap cosmetics.
“I’d be happy to, dear.” I gave her a warm smile, intended as a dismissal, but she didn’t take the hint. “Zelda, is that your phone I hear ringing?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
I leaned over and whispered behind the back of my bony hand, “Your face looks like a thousand-year-old fresco, dear. You might want to respackle it before Melvin gets back.”
That did the trick.
“Now,” I said to Ivan when we were alone again, “is there anyone you can think of that might have had it in for the colonel?”
“Besides that mob of loonies at the town council meeting the other night?”
I didn’t know why, but that remark really irritated me. Yes, Hernia has its warts, but it is my town, and those are my loonies. Wanda Hemphopple is like a mosquito bite on the backside, and you can double that for Elspeth Miller. Lodema Schrock makes me so mad I’ve considered switching religions (maybe become a Baptist or a Methodist—but certainly no
t a beer-bathing Presbyterian). I am allowed to criticize them, because they are my neighbors, and I have to live with them. But for an outsider to badmouth them—well, that was just uncalled- for. I gave Ivan a piece of my mind. Fortunately for him, I’ve given away a lot of those in recent years, so the piece he got was very small.
“Sorry,” he said, in just the right tone.
“Apology accepted. Now, dear, perhaps you’ll answer my question.”
Ivan scratched his head. “The colonel was a businessman, and not all his deals worked out—”
“He told me. This was supposed to be his last stand.”
“Yeah, but even though not everyone he’d done business with was happy, he didn’t have any real enemies either. It was hard not to like Colonel Custard—and I don’t mean it that way, just because I’m gay. You know what I mean.”
“Indeed I do. He was a charmer.” I stood. “Well, I guess I’ll have to go back and re-interview some of those loonies you mentioned.”
He smiled. “Sorry again. Hey, I don’t know if this will help at all—it may not even be connected, but you know there’s that dip in the road by your place?”
“Yes, what about it?” I knew the dip well, only not as well as Susannah. When she was coming home from her dates, back when our parents were alive, she’d have her boyfriends park there. I knew this, because I could see the car disappear into the dip a good twenty minutes before her curfew and not emerge until the very last second. My sister never told me what went on in those intervening minutes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if what she and her beaux did rivaled dancing on the scale of sins. Maybe even ranked a ten.
Ivan drew an imaginary road in the air, and dropped his hand dramatically for the dip. “I could see that from my window. It was kinda neat—especially when a horse and buggy went by. Clop. Clop, clop, then they disappeared for a few seconds. Then clop, clop, clop, and I could see just the horse’s head, and then all the rest.
“Anyway, on the morning the colonel was killed, I was in my room getting ready to go on your little tour of the town, and this blue car comes along. It goes down into the dip, of course, but then it never comes back out.”
“At all?”
“Not ’til after we left, at any rate. I kept trying to see behind me, if the car was maybe following us, but you stopped me.”