by Tamar Myers
I was on the verge of tears. “Do you have an electric can opener?”
Adrienne shook her head. “He took it with him.”
“A bag of dry cat food?”
“That he left behind. He told me to eat it.”
“Don’t just stand there, dear,” I croaked. “Hustle!”
She ran and got the bag and we took turns shaking that around the neighborhood. The rattling of the bag and our repetitive, and now husky, cries of “Dmitri” made us sound like a pair of twin witch doctors on “National Geographic.” But it was all to no avail.
“I’ve had Dmitri seven years,” I wailed. “I always thought he would see me through to my first grandchild—at least my first gray hair. And now he’s gone! Stolen!”
“Stolen?” she rasped. “No offense, Abby, but why would anyone steal a cat?”
I glared at her.
“What I mean is, he could have squeezed through that window, couldn’t he?”
I assured her that Dmitri, who weighs just over ten pounds, was too much cat to squeeze through a three-inch space. And as bright as my Watson was, he had yet to master the art of opening and closing a car door.
“Tell you what,” she said, and I know she just meant to be nice, “there’s really nothing else you can do. Why don’t you tell me where you’re staying, and if he turns up, I’ll give you a call.”
“You mean when he turns up,” I said, but I was far from sure.
I had driven only a couple of blocks when I remembered that I’d forgotten to give Adrienne my room number. Perhaps a normal desk clerk would have been quite capable of transferring my call, but we were dealing with Mushroom Man. The guy looked like he lacked the energy to outrun a glacier, and manning a switchboard had to rank up there with such tiring tasks as licking envelopes and reaching for keys.
Not about to take a chance on delaying my reunion with my precious ball of orange, I turned around in the nearest driveway and headed back to Adrienne’s. I couldn’t have been gone more than two minutes, but when I got within a couple of houses I noticed that the dark green car was no longer in the driveway.
“Damn, but that girl must have had a hot date,” I muttered.
I parked beneath the shady maple again and pondered the situation. The only thing to do now was to write a note and slip it under the door. At times I may be caught without a comb, lipstick, or tube of lotion in my purse—sometimes even without tissues—but there is always something to write on. Coupons, business cards, church bulletins, deposit slips—I could probably write a novel on the paper I carry with me. Much to my surprise and relief, I actually had a pen. “Room 12,” I wrote and just barely managed to squeeze it under the kick plate.
Just as I was reaching for the car door I heard a familiar meow.
“Dmitri?”
“Meow.”
I looked up, and there was Watson regarding me calmly from a limb ten feet above my head. Boy, did I feel like an idiot. Why it had not occurred to me to scan the maple is beyond me. Dmitri is inordinately fond of high places. One of his favorite spots at home is on top of the refrigerator. His preferred spot for a snooze is on the top shelf of the linen closet, something I try to discourage ever since an overnight guest found a hair ball on her bath towel.
I may be slow on the uptake at times, but the chemical accumulations of thirty years of permanent waves have not totally obliterated my brains. I still did not have a can opener, and Adrienne had not left her bag of dry cat food, but I did have a dozen cans of Mighty Mouser’s Cream of Liver Pate. An open can of that gourmet treat placed on top of the car roof brought Dmitri down from the tree in a flash of yellow.
While my buddy ate, so did I. Cold Beanie Weenies and peanut butter sandwiches washed down with warm root beer may not seem like a feast to you, but if you haven’t eaten all day, it’s pure ambrosia. At the end of our respective meals, it was hard to say who was purring louder, Dmitri or I.
I was beginning to feel like an old Hernia hand, and I found my way to Elm Street with no trouble. Finding Leona’s Victorian gingerbread house was a piece of cake. It was by no means the only Victorian house on the street, but it was the only one that could properly be termed a mansion. Its gables and turrets were visible a block away.
“Whoa baby,” I said. “That’s some house! I can’t wait to see the inside of this one.”
Dmitri yawned. “Seen one house, seen them all,” is what he meant to say.
“Don’t worry little buddy, this time I’m going to lock the door.”
Dmitri closed his eyes while I babbled on about Leona’s magnificent manse. One of the rewards of being a pet owner was that I could talk aloud all I wanted and not feel like I had slipped over the edge. It doesn’t matter that my pet hasn’t said more than a dozen words back to me in seven years. If, on the other hand, I drove around talking to a bunch of bananas lying on the front seat, then well, that’s what I would be—bananas.
My intent was to park under one of Hernia’s ubiquitous maples again. By that time in the afternoon the temperature was well into the eighties. How was I to know that early May in Pennsylvania could be so warm? Poor Dmitri. Whoever let him out of the car at Adrienne’s place probably thought of it as an act of mercy.
At any rate, Elm Street didn’t have many maples; it didn’t have any elms for that matter either. The trees of choice seemed to be pin oaks, which were not yet fully leafed out, and Colorado blue spruce. Since parking under a spruce is a physical impossibility unless one is a squirrel, or maybe a tortoise, I had to keep going until a suitable shady tree could be located. Finding a nice shady maple close enough to the street to cast some shade took some searching. Finally I found a handsome sugar maple three blocks past Leona’s gingerbread palace.
I am not allergic to exercise, although I have been known to drive to my aerobics class which meets less than a mile from my home. Still, I felt awkward about walking alone in a strange neighborhood, even one as ostensibly safe as Hernia. Could they tell I was from out of town just by the way I walked? Could they tell I was a southerner? Was some gaunt Yankee sheriff going to swoop out of nowhere, toss me in the slammer, and force me to eat deli food?
So you see, I was quite legitimately preoccupied, and can’t be blamed for not noticing one of the many garage doors open and a dark green car emerge. It wasn’t until the vehicle was several houses past Leona’s that I noticed it. By then it was too far away to make a positive ID of the driver. But my gut—including one can of Beanie Weenies—and half a loaf of peanut butter bread told me that I was looking at the back of Adrienne Wheeler’s bleached blond head.
19
I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself by running back to my borrowed rattletrap and giving chase. Besides, what business of mine was it if Adrienne chose to visit her former mother-in-law? Maybe it had something to do with the children, Charlaine and Suzanne, or whatever their names were. Quite possibly it wasn’t even Adrienne in the burnt green automobile. I have been known to make mistakes before, and this time the sun was in my eyes. A white tennis cap—even gray hair—might, with the proper reflection, appear blond. So saying, I did the sensible thing and put the matter out of my mind.
The Teschel manse had a doorbell plate in the shape of a gargoyle’s profile. One pushed the gargoyle’s eye to ring the bell. Personally, I thought it was rather campy, although I could see how persons more architecturally correct than I might take offense. It would not have surprised me, however, if a butler named Lurch opened the door.
Unfortunately nobody answered the door. I rang that sucker a good dozen times, and I could hear the chimes quite clearly through the lead-paned door. Between rings I also heard what sounded like a door slam.
“Open up, Leona, you big liar,” I shouted through the keyhole.
“Don’t waste your breath.”
I whirled.
The voice came from next door, where a smartly dressed woman about my own age, but of course a lot taller, stood on the property line between th
e two houses. I waved at her, and she waved back, and then motioned me to join her.
“My name is Betty Cole,” she said, and much to my relief, did not offer to shake hands. I am not antisocial, mind you, but the custom of spreading germs as a way of introduction seems a little archaic to me. Much better the Thai custom of folding one’s hands in a prayer position and bowing slightly. If everyone did that, the common cold would practically be eradicated, and productivity in the marketplace would jump dramatically. Just think what such a minor change in our social customs could do for our economy. Anyway, Betty sounded like she had a bad cold and needed to be in bed, not doing her stint as part of the neighborhood watch.
“I’m Abigail Timberlake. I was hoping to speak to Mrs. Teschel.”
She made a disgusted face, and then caught herself. “Oops, you’re not one of her relatives from the Carolinas, are you?”
“I am from the Carolinas, but I am most definitely not one of her relatives.”
“That’s a relief. I know I shouldn’t generalize, but I was beginning to get a bad opinion of Carolinatites.”
“That’s Carolinians, dear. And anyway, Mrs. Teschel doesn’t have any relatives back home that she’s in touch with, does she?”
Betty invited me to sit on her porch, where a pair of white wicker rockers awaited. It was cool and shady on the porch and I wished I had brought Dmitri along.
“Morticia”—she nodded in the direction of Leona’s house—“never has company. Except for her sons, and one of them just died. The other one lives with her.”
“Do you know the family well?”
She shook her well-coiffed head. “She and I aren’t speaking. I accidentally backed over her pansies the week we moved in. You would have thought I killed the family dog, the way she carried on. If I put one toe over the property line—like if I’m mowing or something—she goes ballistic. I was beginning to think that was a Carolina thing.”
“I assure you that it’s not.”
“This wasn’t what Hubert and I were expecting,” she said, her voice trailing off into unmistakable sadness. “It’s so hard to get used to it.”
“Having nasty neighbors?”
She glanced at me and then her eyes took on a faraway look. “We’re from New York, you know.”
“Ah, so you must mean the cold.”
“Believe me, it gets cold here too. Anyway, that’s not the problem. It’s the boredom of living in a small town. I don’t suppose you can imagine what it is like to move from the city to a place this small.”
“Not the city,” I said, “but I have a vague idea.”
“It was Hubert’s idea. Things would be so cheap here we could afford to retire early. Take this house, for instance”—she gestured behind her—“do you know what we would have to pay for that back home?”
“They have Victorian gingerbread houses in New York City?”
“No, and that’s exactly my point. We would have had to go to Connecticut to find something comparable, but it would have cost five times as much. Five times!”
I shook my head. “Maybe things are overpriced in Connecticut, dear.”
“Yeah, well, at least in Connecticut they have trains that take you into the city. There is always something to do. And the shopping! Did you know that Hernia has only one teensy little grocery store? And no art galleries, no museums, and of course no concerts. Not even any movie theaters.”
“Well, Pittsburgh does,” I said helpfully, “and I hear it’s less than two hours away.”
“Ha! Two hours away on the turnpike, but Hubert and I don’t drive. What kind of life is this?”
“How long have you lived here, dear?”
She frowned. “Two years, eleven months, and four days. But it seems like a lifetime.”
“Where is your husband?” I asked gently.
“Inside watching TV. Some silly rerun. ‘Green Acres,’ I think. The screen is so snowy it’s like watching a blizzard. Did you know we can’t get cable here?”
“That’s a fate worse than death,” I said sympathetically.
“Tell me about it. I may as well be dead. It’s these silly mountains, you see. They block the reception. I can’t even watch ‘All My Children.’”
“Lord have mercy!” She was absolutely right. Life without “AMC” is a life devoid of quality.
Betty glanced around surreptitiously. “Most of the people here are Pennsylvania Dutch—that means they’re like Amish or Mennonite or something. They’re real conservative.”
“You don’t say.”
She lowered her voice. “They don’t drink. No alcohol of any kind. Not even communion wine. You just try and throw a cocktail party.”
“Bummer!”
“Hey, you’re not making fun of me, are you?”
“Not a bit, dear. But Leona Teschel isn’t Pennsylvania Dutch. I realize you’re not speaking to the lady, but have you ever invited her to your parties?”
Betty recoiled in horror. “You’ve never met the woman, have you?”
I nodded vigorously. “But I have. In fact, I once thought I knew Leona quite well.”
She cocked her head. “Then you’d know that she’s as mean as a—uh—well—”
“A snake?”
“Yeah. And she’s even meaner now that her other son moved back in.”
“Tommy Lee?”
Betty shrugged. “I’ve never met the man, but you can see the resemblance. Especially around the eyes—well, he’s not blind, but you know what I mean.”
“When did this second son move back in?”
“Maybe a month ago. You should have heard them fight.”
“Leona and Tommy Lee fight?”
“You better believe it, but I’m talking about the brothers. They fought like cats and dogs. Oh, they’d play some music over there, so we weren’t supposed to hear it, but we did anyway.”
I flashed her an accomplice’s smile. “Did you hear anything interesting?”
“Say,” she said, “where are my manners? You must think we Yankees haven’t any. Would you like something cold to drink?”
I was as parched as toast, but I didn’t want to interrupt the flow. I smiled again.
“I’m fine, thank you. So, tell me everything you heard.”
“Well, I never really knew what they were fighting about, except that it had to do with business, but I could tell that one brother—the man you called Tommy Lee—thought the other brother didn’t have a knack for it.”
“Can you be more specific?”
She raked perfectly manicured nails through the perfectly coiffed do, thereby rending it imperfect. Then one shake of the head and it all fell back into place. Hernia might not have the amenities of the city, but it had one hell of a hairdresser.
“Careless,” she said. “That’s what Tommy Lee called the other one—Billy something, isn’t it?”
“Billy Ray. So Billy Ray was careless.”
“He didn’t cover his tracks well, whatever that meant.”
“Sounds intriguing.” I giggled. Anything to urge her on.
“So, then Tommy Lee tells Billy Ray that he has to go back down and fix things.”
“Go where?”
“I have no idea. Maybe he meant the basement. I only heard bits and pieces at a time, and that music was always so loud. I even thought of calling the police and complaining. About the music, I mean.”
“But you never did, did you?”
“God!” She rolled her eyes. “You should see what passes for cops around here. Melvin Stoltzfus wouldn’t last a day in the city.”
It was time to steer her back on track. Folks without an agenda constantly meander in their conversations. Lord, but it drives me crazy.
“You ever hear anything really juicy?”
Betty looked as if I’d slapped her face. “How juicy do you want? Isn’t that enough? I don’t listen with a stethoscope, you know.”
“Of course not, dear.” The quickest way to redeem myself was to
ask for a favor. Trust me, that ploy works every time. “Is it too late to take you up on your offer of a cold drink? My throat feels like a cotton ball dispenser.”
“Do you drink beer?” she asked brightly.
“Does a squirrel eat nuts?”
“I’ve got Rolling Rock,” she said. “That’s the only good thing Hernia has over the city, if you ask me.”
I wisely refrained from asking her if she felt this safe in the Big Apple. “Does the Yoder Corner Market sell beer?”
“Under the counter, so to speak. You have to ask for it a week in advance. If our real estate agent hadn’t told us that, we never would have known.”
“Wow!”
She got up and returned a few minutes later with two beers and a small bowl of peanuts. I scooped up as many goobers as I could in one handful so I wouldn’t have to dip into the bowl again. We drank in silence for a few minutes.
Betty chuckled to herself. “A stethoscope does come in handy at keyholes. You ever try it?”
“No. Have you?”
She nodded. “One night they had the music turned up so loud, I couldn’t hear a thing. I used it on the back door—it’s darker there because of all the trees—anyway, with the stethoscope I could at least hear some of what they were saying.”
I took a swig of Rolling Rock. “And?”
She sighed. “Same old, same old. They were just fighting about business. Something about their father leaving it to both of them, so how come one of them had to do all the dirty work.”
“Dirty work?”
“I think that’s what they said. The stethoscope magnifies the music too, you know.”
“Do you know what kind of business?” According to Richard Nixon the Bedford Tool and Die Company had gone belly up years ago.
Betty surprised me with a belch. “Munitions, I think.”
“What?” I was too early into my beer to be hearing things.