by Sandy McKee
“That is tough,” I sympathized. “I often wonder what kind of marriage Jake and I would have had if he gotten back from ‘Nam. Are there any prospective husbands around here?”
“Now really,” scoffed Lynn. “We’ve got Amish, bullies who harass them and old widowed incontinent men looking for a younger woman to take care of them. Take your pick.”
“No thanks, I’ll pass. So what do you do for fun around here?” I queried.
“Along with the shop and the kids, I do some dog shows. I’ve always loved basset hounds. We breed and sell puppies too. They’re so adorable. Now that’s one gripe I have against some of our Amish neighbors. Some of them are secretly running despicable puppy mills in their barns. They make a fortune at it. The mothers never get out of a small crate and produce litter after litter. When they can’t have any more puppies, they shoot them. It makes me sick. I’ve even heard that some of the Amish hammer sharp objects down the dogs’ throats so they are unable to bark. That way they can have over five hundred dogs in a barn and no one hears them.”
I felt sick. “Are you serious? I can’t believe something so horrible is going on. Doesn’t anyone do anything about it?”
Lynn shook her head. “Most of what they’re doing is perfectly legal. I have heard that some animal rights people have been around the area. They try to rescue these dogs at night. I heard that when the dogs come out of those crates, they drag their legs. They’ve never walked.”
I couldn’t bear to hear any more. I said goodbye to Lynn and wondered how anyone could be so cruel to innocent animals.
When I got home, Mom said that Sharon’s husband had called from the winery. I could about guess what he thought of my letter. I decided to get it over with and gave him a call. His voice was as loud as my brother’s.
“Do you really think that letter is going to help? You’ll just piss off a lot of people and create a lynch mob mentality around here. Leave it alone, Dana. You may mean well, but you’re not doing any of us a favor, especially the businesses.” He slammed down the phone.
Well on the bright side, I mused. I was getting some reaction. Now if I could just sort out the cranks from the actual culprits. I decided to take that ride to Hungry Ridge and see if I could find any old friends. I took Mom’s Jeep recalling that the roads in that area were one lane and full of potholes. Although Hungry Ridge was only eight miles from Solitude, it was still so unlike the quaint homes and farms that drew the artsy types and tourists to the area. It looked like many of the same junked cars that were there when I was a child hadn’t been moved. There were rusted out mobile homes and lots of angry looking pit bulls tied in front yards. I saw a familiar name, “Landover,” on a mailbox and recalled a quiet little boy who went to Consolidated School when I did. I also heard that he’d gone to ‘Nam and came back a hero but in a wheel chair. I decided to take a chance and knock on the door of the doublewide. I heard a couple dogs barking, then the door opened slightly. I saw an older looking woman peek out.
“Hi, my name is Dana. I grew up around here and was just looking up some of my old classmates. You wouldn’t happen to know Ralphie Landover?”
“He’s my son. I think he’s working out back in the garage. Go on round back if you want.”
I walked back to the garage and noted that I missed a sign that said, “Landover Body Shop.” I spotted Ralphie smoking a cigarette. He was in a wheelchair and had stubs where there should have been legs. “Hi,” I called. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we went to grade school together.”
Ralphie took a draw on his hand rolled cigarette and stared at me. He didn’t seem to recognize me, so I continued, “I’m Dana, we were in Mrs. Hoover’s class together. We played a lot of softball back then.”
Ralphie stubbed out his cigarette and shrugged. “That was a lifetime ago. You look sort of familiar. What brings you here?”
“Well, I moved back to the area recently and someone said that you might be able to help me out with a matter I’m looking into.”
“O.K., you’re last name was McKenzie wasn’t it? You were always sticking your nose in other’s people business.”
“I guess that’s true. My last name is Blades, now. I was married for a short time. My husband never came back from Vietnam, but I kept his name. I hear that you were quite a local hero.”
“Lot of good it did me. No legs, still livin’ with my mom. Real success story. I had always hoped to get out of here and make something of myself. I just….”
Ralphie stared off lost in the sentence and I wondered if he was on some kind of drug or maybe just depressed. He look sixty instead of forty and was lighting another cigarette.
“I ran into an old Amish friend. She said that the Amish were getting a lot of threats and harassment and I just wondered if you’d heard anything?”
“And what, you decided to come talk to me? What do you think, that I’m so bitter that I get my kicks tormenting Amish?”
“No, no of course not. A guy I met just said that some people around here might be involved. He seemed like a reliable source, but I never meant you. I’m thinking teenagers, young punks.”
I suddenly wondered what I was doing there. He had every reason to tell me to get off his property. Real smooth, Dana.
“Well, Dana, here’s what I can tell you. I could care less about the Amish. I mind my own business and they mind theirs. My Dad drove them around before he died last year. I know that there are some people who do hate their guts. They wish they’d have never come to this area. They hate the horse shit all over the road and the buggies slowing traffic. They think they’re a bunk of hypocrites who just use religion when it’s convenient. We got Klansmen in this county as well as militia groups as well as neo-nazi groups. I got no time for them and try to mind my own business. If you’re smart, you’ll do the same.”
I thanked Ralphie for his time and tried to apologize for bothering him. I drove home feeling stupid and almost ready to mind my own business. I decided that I might as well stop by the Junior Senior High School where I’d taught many years before and see if I could learn anything else. One of the men that I’d started teaching with was now the principal. I asked Mrs. Ralston, who’d been the school secretary thirty years, if it’d be O.K. to stop by the faculty room. She gave me a hug and said it would be fine. “The faculty really hasn’t changed all that much since you taught here. Teaching jobs aren’t that easy to come by. I’ll take you down and reintroduce you. You look great. You must have a picture that’s getting older.”
It was good to reconnect with a lot of my old colleagues. I enjoyed the ‘war stories’ about the kids. “So what are you really up to, Dana?” asked Cathy James, who taught math. “It sounded like you’d found the good life in Florida, living a the beach, a cushy college teaching job.”
“It was pretty good, for a while,” I admitted. “But my mother isn’t doing too well, and I was ready for a change. I’ll have to find a real job eventually, but now I’m looking into the violence and threats against the Amish.”
“You always were one for snooping around, Dana.” Laughed Sally Nelson, now the head of the English department. “I remember when you got the goods on that one principal, what was his name? He couldn’t get out of here soon enough.”
“As I recall, you gave me some help with that. I think his name was Anderson. Lars Anderson, what a screw up!”
“We can probably give you a long list of possible suspects when it comes to troublemakers.” said Brad Henderson, the football coach and phys ed teacher. “I’m not sure they are murderers though, that murder of the school teacher is pretty puzzling.”
Most of the teachers around the table nodded in agreement. “Dana, I have an idea, why don’t you come into some of my classes as a guest speaker? “ asked Sally. “ You were always so creative, and these kids could use a lesson on multicultural understanding. I don’t like some of the comments that I hear some of the students making about minorities and even the Amish. Maybe you can get
some insight and feedback from the kids at the same time.”
“I’m not sure I can make much of an impact with one appearance, but sure, why not? Teenagers are usually a good source of information on what’s going on. When should I come?” I responded.
“How does this Friday sound? I have a class at two that would be perfect…typical sixteen year olds.”
I spent the rest of the day tending to my mother, playing with Toby and working on my finances. I’d managed to save quite a bit and had a small retirement, but realized that I was going to need to eventually do something else to fund my travel, books and antiques hobby.
By four o’clock, Mom seemed to be doing better. She reminded me that we should get her Jeep inspected and serviced. Even though Mom had reluctantly given up her driver’s license, she wanted to keep her car, insisting that it would be a much better winter car for me than the little red sports car. I called Leonard’s garage, and he said he was open that evening and could take care of it. The garage was about seven miles away, and I told him that I’d just stay with the car until they were done. I thought of a new Sue Grafton mystery that I could curl up and read in peace in the waiting room.
After a light dinner of vegetable soup, I got the Jeep started and headed over to the garage. While it was over ten years old, it was really in pristine shape. It would be safer to drive when the snow came. Leonard said the work would likely take two hours. Leonard asked me if I remembered the time when I was in college and lost the clutch in my VW Beetle. There had been a lice epidemic at the college and I was on my way out of town with some of my pals to buy lice shampoo. No one in the garage wanted to work on the car for fear of being infected. Finally, the baldest guy there did the job. We both shared a good laugh at the memory.
The time went fast. I enjoyed my new book and was glad that the Jeep checked out fine. It was dark by the time I pulled out of the garage. I looked forward to getting home to a hot bath.
It was a dark, cloudy, and foggy night. I enjoyed the winding mountain road while listening to my favorite oldies station. Suddenly some bright headlights were headed straight at me. I swerved quickly to avoid a collision. Then I felt myself falling. Everything went blank.
When I came to, I ached all over. I tried to move my arms and legs to check to see if anything was broken. Fortunately, I had my seat belt on. I didn’t think any bones were broken, but I did seem to have a cut on my forehead that continued to bleed. My chest felt bruised and sore too. I looked around and realized that I’d gone down an embankment and likely rolled over a couple times. The motor was still running and the car was setting upright. I tried to give the Jeep some gas to see if I could get back up on the road. The wheels spun in the tall grass or what looked like a corn field. I put the Jeep in four wheel drive and managed to get back on the road. Shaken, I drove slowly home. I looked at the clock on the radio and realized I’d only blacked out for a minute or two.
I pulled the Jeep in the garage and turned all the lights on. I was amazed that except for a couple large dents and scratches and a lot of mud, it came through the accident pretty well. My mother was sleeping when I came in the door and I soaked for an hour in a hot tub. I crawled into my bed wondering if it was an accident or someone telling me to back off. Even though I’d tell my mother it was an accident, in my heart I knew that I was making someone angry or nervous or both. I just wondered how whoever ran me off the road knew where I’d be. I’d either been followed or someone at Leonard’s garage tipped somebody off.
Chapter 11
Thursday
I woke the next day to a pounding headache. I found lots of bruises all over my body and had black eyes. I tried to touch my nose and decided that it was probably broken. The cut in my forehead didn’t look too bad, so I figured I’d skip on getting any stitches. I loaded up on Tylenol and covered as much damage as I could with makeup before facing Mom. She didn’t seem especially upset and just went and got out her insurance cards so I could call and see about getting some repairs done on the minor damages to the Jeep. I suggested we not bother reporting it to the insurance company. I told her I’d get it repaired locally and pay for the damages.
When I went out to retrieve the newspaper from the porch, I noticed a rock with a note attached to it by a rubber band. How original, I thought, probably another threat. I unwrapped it and sat down on a porch chair to read it. The teacher in me wanted to correct the spelling and punctuation.
Dear Docter Bitch,
Keep your nose out of are busines. we got are resons for what we do to them dam dutch. We dint kill that tcher. Are sex lifes our just fine to, asshole!
Members of yor favorite hate groop
I chuckled, thinking no one can spell that badly! I had no idea whether the note was a hoax or a follow-up to the road incident. I decided to pass it on to the police and let them handle it. Maybe the murder didn’t have anything to do with the rest of the violence. Thank God they hadn’t thrown the rock through a window and terrified my mother.
After breakfast I decided to try to track down the family of Fannie’s shunned brother. I was able to reach his wife. I explained my connection to Fannie. I told her that Fannie would like to keep in touch and was wondering how the children were. I could hear the pride through the phone line. “Well our oldest stayed on and is running the farm. He has a wonderful family, is a deacon in the church and serves on the school board.”
She went onto tell me that another child was a pediatrician in Columbus and the other a psychologist in Cleveland. I decided to cross them off my suspect list. I thanked her for her time and assured her that I’d pass everything on to Fannie.
By lunchtime my headache had eased up considerably, and Toby was parading around the house with his red leash in his teeth demanding a walk. I scrambled some eggs and bacon for a lunch for us, then headed out into the midday sunshine. The leaves were really starting to turn and despite everything, it felt good to be home.
I spotted a state police cruiser cruising through town and flagged him down. He pulled over and got out of the car. A tall good looking trooper smiled down at me.
“Jessica Fletcher, I presume, or is it Sherlock Holmes?”
“Dana Blades, and you are?”
“I’m Sergeant Tom Pierce, and I know who you are. You’re the busy body trying to show up Pennsylvania’s finest. I heard you were kind of cute, but yuck. What’s with your face?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m having a good face day. By the way I found this note on my porch earlier this morning. Please feel free to incorporate it into your evidence file.”
Trooper Pierce looked over the note and shook his head. “Probably some kids. You invite this kind of crap by writing stupid letters to the paper.”
He put the note in his pocket and tipped his hat. “Good to meet you. Have a nice day, ma’am.”
“Well, Toby, isn’t he the patronizing one. He is pretty cute. Did you see those blue eyes? We’ll show him, won’t we, boy?”
I think Toby rolled his eyes, but I let it go. We walked on until we got to the creek. I left Toby off the leash to run. I was just starting to relax, when Toby disturbed a huge turkey that nearly flew into my face! “That’s it, I’m going home and taking another hot bath and an afternoon nap.”
Just as I got home, I noticed that the police cruiser had pulled up in front of the house. Trooper Pierce stepped out and waved at me. “Dana, I really didn’t mean to come off so rude. I know your heart’s in the right place. Could we talk for a minute?”
I motioned him to sit down on one of the rockers on the porch.
“I just want you to know that we’re on top of this hate group stuff. There are several hundred groups across the country and Pennsylvania has more than its share. We have a task force on hate groups that I’ve been part of recently. Back several years ago, Pennsylvania was one of two areas chosen nationally for recruitment of hate group members. What with the bad economy from closing steel mills and coal mines, this area
was ripe for anger and hatred. These groups prey on prejudice and fear. They like to blame blacks, Jews, gays and immigrants for all our problems. The interesting thing is that these groups actually commit only about five percent of all the hate crimes. The other ninety-five percent are committed by people who are exposed to these groups. We call them ‘lone wolves.’ It’s often young men in their late teens and early twenties who get their rocks off by burning crosses and bullying people who won’t fight back. We’ve got some names and are zeroing in on a few local guys.”
“Thanks for filling me in. I’m impressed with your knowledge of these groups. What are we doing to reverse the anger, hostility and violence?” I asked.
“We’re trying to work with church and community leaders to create a climate where people come not just to respect and tolerate diversity but to actually embrace it and see its positive aspects. It’s a real challenge, but we’re making some inroads. If you’re interested, you might consider getting involved with some of the people who are organizing programs for schools and other community organizations.”
“I’d really like that,” I replied.
Trooper Pierce told me a little more about some of the area people he was working with, then said he needed to get back to the barracks. I thanked him again, so pleased to hear about all the people working for good in the neighborhood. I was also wondering if the trooper was single. Good looking and smart and actually kind of nice.
A short nap really helped me to feel better. When I got up, I decided to regroup and figure out where to head next in my own “investigation.” I took the Jeep up to Ralphie’s garage. I bought a carton of his brand of cigarettes as a peace offering. Ralphie was in the garage working on a pickup truck fender. I pulled into the driveway and waved. He motioned me over with a smile.