by Tamar Myers
Doc cut himself a piece of cake twice the size of mine. “I am not Norah’s obstetrician, although I have delivered puppies for her three times. Still, I’d have to say that little Sherri is, and has always been, Norah’s only child. Poor thing.”
“At least she has a child.” I hoped I didn’t sound bitter.
“I meant the child, not Norah.”
I felt better for the rest of the evening, at least until I pulled into my own driveway and was faced with the front porch again. I did suffer a momentary relapse when I laid eyes on the rail upon which that arrogant Aaron had perched. Angrily, I ran my fingers along the length of the thick wooden rail. It is one thing to be mocked by virtual strangers when one is out in the world, but to have one’s emotions assaulted on one’s home ground is a terrible ordeal I wouldn’t even wish on Melvin Stoltzfus. In a way I almost felt violated. Now I could never enjoy my front porch again without seeing Aaron Miller’s mocking face, or feeling the heat of his lips as they pressed against mine. Then suddenly, and shamefully, I was aware that my fingers had slowed in their angry race across the smooth, worn wood, and were almost caressing it. Horrified, I jerked them away. But it was too late. The cool wood had somehow managed to scorch my fingertips just as surely as if I had touched hot coals. Despite the pain, I felt a strange sense of exhilaration. For the first time in my life, I, Magdalena Augusta Yoder, was playing with fire.
Mama was right. I am a shameless hussy. No doubt about it. I was in the shower, trying to cool off, when I heard a knock on the door. Quite wittingly, I grabbed my summer robe and practically flew to answer it. Of course I put the robe on first, and I did cinch it tight at the waist, but I will confess that I did not clasp it tightly shut at the collar as I might have in the past.
“Yes?” I said in a naturally but appropriately breathy voice. The wet hair in my eyes prevented me from seeing clearly.
“You were expecting someone else maybe?”
“Melvin Stoltzfus!”
“In the flesh. Oh, you might want to dry off, Mags. You’re dripping water all over your nice hardwood floor.”
“And you’ll be dripping blood, Melvin, unless you vacate my property in the next three seconds.”
“No can do, Mags. I’m here on official police business.” He patted a tawny-colored leather briefcase, undoubtedly made from the skin of one of his victims.
“What’s the business?
“You sure you don’t want to get dressed first?” I could feel at least one of Melvin’s eyes staring at my robe. It is, I’ll have you know, a modest terry robe that comes well below my knees.
“State your business, Melvin. In ten words or less.”
“You can’t rush me when I’m on official police business, Magdalena. I have to say what I have to say in as many words as it takes to say it.”
I changed first. My hair would be dry and my floor probably moldy before Melvin got through with his badgering. I’ve known cheese to age in less time than it takes Melvin to get to the point.
“Yes, what is it?” I asked again a few minutes later. This time I was wearing a calf-length dress that buttoned up to the chin. There are advantages to being too lazy to store away one’s winter things. Let Melvin’s eyes rove. They would tire well before they alighted on anything of interest.
“Sit down,” said Melvin peremptorily.
“Give you an inch, and you’ll take a mile,” I said. “This is my house, Melvin, remember? I sit or stand only when I want to.” So saying, I scooted to claim my favorite rocking chair.
Melvin sat on a hard, high-backed antique thing that had once belonged to Grandma Yoder. I blessed the woman inwardly for her austere taste. Not even a cushion can remain long on that chair without squirming.
“Well, spit it out,” I said. “I don’t have all night.”
“I’m afraid your gig is up, Magdalena. It would be easier for you if you just came clean and confessed.”
I complied. “I confess that I loathe you, Melvin Stoltzfus. There, will that do? Will you please leave now?” Melvin looked rather comfortable in Grandma’s chair. Perhaps he was considering spinning a cocoon there, or whatever it is that praying mantises lay their young in. “Joke all you want to, Magdalena, but the last joke’s on you. This evening I got an anonymous call telling me that a pitchfork had been found in the woods behind your barn. Zelda and I checked it out, and sure enough, we found it, all right. It was pretty stupid of you to leave it right out in a clearing, if you ask me.”
I willed my hands to maintain their grip on the arms of my favorite rocker. Melvin’s neck was probably a fragile and unrepairable thing. “So, you found a pitchfork, what of it? It just so happens that I’m missing two pitchforks. The one used to kill Don Manley, and the one Steven bought to replace it. That one has been missing as well. Ask Mose about it. He was complaining earlier. He’ll tell you.”
“I bet he will. So, in other words, Magdalena, you are confirming that the pitchfork we found in the woods belongs to you?”
I rolled my eyes like Susannah does when she’s exasperated.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Melvin practically screamed. “Don’t you go having an epileptic seizure on my time!” I rolled them spitefully again. “Get a grip on it, Melvin. You’re the one who’s having fits.” I paused until he had calmed down enough to, at least theoretically, hear what I was saying. “Just because you found a pitchfork in my woods doesn’t mean it belongs to me, and even if it does belong to me, it could well be the replacement pitchfork. Did the one you and Zelda find have any blood or other body tissue on it?”
“You could have wiped it off.”
“I’m not that bright, Melvin. Besides which, a good forensics lab can easily find traces of blood that can’t be seen by the naked eye.” Although maybe that wasn’t true in Melvin’s case. He looked like he had 360-degree peripheral vision. Who knew what those eyes could see.
“Ha! I’m one step ahead of you, Yoder. I’m taking the pitchfork into Harrisburg myself tomorrow. And I’m going to camp outside on the lab steps, if I have to, until I get that report.”
“Good for you, Melvin. It warms the heart to see a lawman doing his job. But you keep forgetting one thing. Even if that is the same fork that killed Don Manley, it doesn’t prove I did it.”
The hoods on Melvin’s eyes came down like miniature barbecue covers. “Prints, Yoder, prints.”
“Prints shmints!” I said loudly (I do not scream, regardless of what Susannah says). “What would my fingerprints prove? It was my pitchfork, and of course I used it! I don’t wear gloves when I pitch hay, Melvin.”
Melvin rolled back the hood on one of his eyes and regarded me balefully. “I can produce fifty witnesses who will each swear that you threatened them with a pitchfork on the day Reels and Runs Productions held their first casting session.”
I put my mind in fast-reverse. Even then it took me a couple of seconds to figure out what Melvin was talking about. I guess it is simply a matter of perspective, something of which I admittedly always seem to be in short supply. But from my point of view, brandishing a pitchfork (quite harmlessly) to maintain an orderly presence on one’s property is hardly the same thing as threatening someone. This I hopelessly tried to explain to Melvin.
“Look, Yoder, it’s as simple as this. You can give me your thumbs here, or I can haul you down to my office. Take your pick.”
“You brought your own screws with you?” I eyed the tawny briefcase nervously.
Melvin’s laugh was typically invertebrate; his mandibles moved, but little or no sound was emitted. “You’re a laugh riot, Yoder. Now, look, you want me to do the printing here, or not?”
I gave Melvin the finger he was asking for.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“There is no justice when it comes to paychecks,” Papa used to say. He was right. If there were justice, ditchdiggers would be millionaires, and ballplayers would be half a paycheck above the poverty level. I guess the same holds true for movie stars,
although I would give them that extra half paycheck as compensation for all the waiting around they have to do.
I didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, what went on at those motels in Bedford every night, but from what I could tell about life on the set, movie stars lead very boring lives. Even a pill bug in a pot of dead petunias is bound to have more fun. For every minute of film one sees on the big screen, there’s an hour of sitting around and waiting while camera angles are changed, lights and sound equipment adjusted, and the director and his subordinates gab endlessly. While all this is tediously transpiring, the actors sit around perspiring, presumably counting the money they’re getting in return. Ballplayers have downtime too, but they at least spit, grab their crotches, and if they find nothing there worth grabbing, pat each other’s fannies.
“You have got to be bored to tears,” I said to Darla Strutt. Perhaps if I showed some understanding, so would she. I did not fancy being sued because of Shnookums’s sex life.
‘‘One million three hundred and fifty thousand, seven hundred and ninety-six dollars and thirteen cents,” she said, proving my assumption.
“You want to play a game of cards?” I meant ROOK, of course. We Mennonites don’t generally play with face cards.
“Piss off, Magdalena.”
I forced a smile. What’s a little pain if it’s for a good cause? “Darla, one of my best friends is a vet. He can take care of Fifi’s—uh—problem, if you want. It’ll be on me.”
Darla stared hard at me. Perhaps she was sizing me up for a coffin. “I wouldn’t even speak to you at all, Magdalena, if it weren’t for the fact that we’re almost family.”
That was news to me. “We’re definitely not kissing cousins,” I hastened to say.
“Don’t get me wrong, Magdalena. I still might sue you—for emotional damage—however, I have decided to let my precious Fifi have her pups.”
“Why, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” I said with relief. “Actually, I’ll be a dog’s aunt. No, make that great-aunt to an entire litter. I’m sure I don’t deserve such an honor.”
“Just because we’re related doesn’t mean I have to be nice to you. I still might sue, you know.”
“I know.”
“Good, just keep that in mind. Now, what is it you wanted in the first place?”
“I thought we might have a little chat.”
“What about? I already spilled my guts to the tabloids.”
I smiled patiently. “Guts aren’t measured by cup size, dear. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about your personal scandals, interesting as they might be. I thought maybe you’d enjoy dishing a little dirt on other people for a change. You know, be on the giving, rather than the receiving end.”
Boy, did I feel awful saying that. I really don’t approve of gossip, unless, of course, the gossipee is especially deserving—like Tracy Ediger, who ran off to Maryland with Pete Flanagen, our postman, leaving behind a grand total of three spouses (Pete was a Morman), eleven children, seven dogs, four cats, and a badly leaking aquarium. Even then I wouldn’t have gossiped about it, except that Tracy had the nerve to come back only a month later and try out for a spot in the choir at the Beechy Grove Mennonite Church. Even then I would have held my tongue and kept one ear covered, but when Tracy started making eyes at Reverend Gingerich, I’d had enough. After all, Tracy is a Methodist. If anyone is going to have an affair with Reverend Gingerich, it should be a Mennonite.
“Well, who do you want to talk about?” asked Darla generously. “I’m one of the few people who know Zsa Zsa’s correct age, and I did get a chance to count Jane Fonda’s ribs in a locker room one day.”
I smiled my appreciation. I even went so far as to pat that little ratty dog of hers. Carefully, of course, given its delicate condition. “Wouldn’t it be more fun to talk about people we both know?”
Darla has a heart of gold. “Well, Kitty in makeup had her thighs liposuctioned in May. Apparently it was a botched job, which is why Kitty walks that way.”
“I wondered about that.”
“And Bruce, the lighting technician, lights up more than cigarettes on his off hours. Those sunglasses he wears are not job-related.”
“Very interesting. But you know, one of the most enigmatic people around here seems to be Steven Freeman. What can you tell me about him?” I asked casually.
Darla blew a bubble the size of Uranus. Somehow she managed to talk without popping it. "Steven’s a washout, if you ask me. He comes on big in his Bugsy persona, but there isn’t anything there to speak of, if you know what I mean.”
I made a mental note to give her Jumbo’s number. “But what kind of person is he? Inside?”
The bubble popped, and Darla staggered back from the force, but she was otherwise undaunted. “You’re asking about his mob connections, aren’t you?” She started to laugh, and loudly, before I could even begin to answer. Of course that ratty mutt of hers had to contribute to the fracas as well. Had I only had a pitchfork, Freni could have added shish kebab to the lunch menu.
When you’ve lost face, you might as well face off. What have you got to lose? “Okay, so that’s my question. What about it? Does Bugsy, I mean Steven, have mob connections?”
At least Darla stopped laughing long before her dog did.
“Yeah, Steven has mob connections, but only in a very roundabout way. Before he started doing behind-the-camera stuff, he worked as an extra back in Hollywood. Godfather Four was his biggest triumph.”
“Is that a movie?” I asked innocently.
Strutt and mutt howled again, and when, after a few minutes, they showed no sign of letting up, I simply walked away. It’s bad enough that Susannah attacks my morals, but I won’t tolerate that kind of criticism from a bitch. Or Darla either.
Doc called while we were eating lunch. “What’s it today?” he asked politely.
“Oh, some kind of Thai food again. This time it’s got squid and eggplants the size of marbles. Frankly, I can’t wait until Freni makes up with Barbara. This morning she gave Art a pair of John’s suspenders as a present. If this feud keeps up much longer, Freni’s liable to adopt Art and return with him to Hollywood. Who will cook for me then?”
“I will.” Doc sounded like he meant it. “Speaking of food, you’re welcome to join me for lunch.”
“Thanks, Doc, but if I duck out now, Freni will blow a gasket. She’s threatened second helpings of squid to anyone who doesn’t finish their first.”
“Can you drop by after lunch, then?”
“As tough as this squid is, Doc, lunch could be an all day affair. Besides, I have a big scene to shoot this afternoon.”
“Tonight, then? There’s something important I need to talk to you about.”
“Can’t we talk about it now?”
“Uhn-uhn,” grunted Doc. He sounded like he was losing his patience with me.
“Okay, tonight. Supper?” I asked hopefully.
“Pot roast with carrots, onions, celery, and new potatoes. Three-bean salad. Homemade chunky applesauce. Pineapple upside-down cake.”
I told Doc I’d see him with bells on.
The afternoon’s shoot went even better than that of the day before. Despite the makeshift script, or maybe because of it, our scenes seemed to flow rather naturally. Art Lapata not only permits ad-libbing, he promotes it, and this method of acting seemed particularly well suited to our little group. It was only on those few occasions when Darla blew a bubble or Rip swore that we had to do retakes. And those were all at my insistence.
Apparently Bedford was not a half-bad place for partying, because the minute Art yelled “that’s a wrap” for the last time, the whole shebang packed up and hit the road north. There was only the briefest of delays when a fistfight broke out over who would be the lucky crew member to have Susannah sit on his lap for the twenty-mile ride. The winner drove an otherwise empty van with my slut-puppy of a sister perched between him and the steering wheel. According to what Susannah told me later, her weight, whic
h is not all that much, left the poor guy stuck in neutral all night. If I knew what she meant, she added. I did not.
After Freni and Mose left—she, eager to snub her daughter-in-law, and he, willing to try to patch things up —I had the place deliciously to myself. When I got out of the tub an hour and three water changes later, I could have been a spokeswoman for the California Prune Board. But I had plumped up enough to look presentable by the time I pulled into Doc’s.
“You didn’t take enough potatoes,” said Doc as he spooned some carrots onto my plate.
It was time to give my fork a brief rest. “Okay, Doc, out with it. Something’s been bugging you all evening. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’m your friend, remember?”
Doc sighed. Suddenly he looked his eighty-four years. “It’s because we’re such good friends, and I”—he paused, swallowed and then chickened out—“am so fond of you, that I’m worried.”
“Spit it out, Doc!” I hate it when people build things up just for the sake of drama. Of course, on the plus side, things are seldom as bad as they want us to think, and so there is that wonderful sense of relief when they do finally tell you the scoop.
“Well, Mags, the thing is, I’ve been toying around with my new fax machine, and—”
“And you found out that Also Ran is a washout for the Kentucky Derby?”
“Dammit, Mags! Don’t you ever quit? What I’m trying to say is that I faxed a letter to a buddy of mine, who shall remain nameless, who has a practice over in Pittsburgh. Not a vet practice, for your information, but a psychiatric practice. As it so happens, he’s on staff at the Roselund Clinic. Of course patient confidentially has to be respected, it’s the law. But there are ways of flexing the law just a little bit, for the greater good, you understand?”
“Completely. So what did you learn?”