by Tamar Myers
As usual, the chickens were flapping and squawking out of my way as I reached into their nest boxes to get out the eggs. In most instances hens will stay put and sometimes even peck the hand that tries to pluck their eggs, but not my darlings. Even the dumbest of them learned early in the game that I will goose any hen who doesn’t vacate her box immediately.
I had just managed to intimidate Pertelote, the boldest of my hens, into leaving her nest, when I heard the most awful disturbance behind me. Foxes might be historically infamous for raiding henhouses, but in Hernia it’s coons, nine times out of ten. And lately, raccoons have gotten bolder and bolder and are as likely to make a foray into fowldom in broad daylight as they are at night. If I wasn’t a pacifist by heritage, I would buy a gun and blow those masked bandits to kingdom come.
I whirled around, half-expecting to see a raccoon. “Lydia!”
“Hello, Magdalena.”
“What on earth are you doing here?” Even in her hunting clothes Lydia Ream looked far too elegant to grace the inside of a henhouse.
“Magdalena, I need to talk to you.” Lydia advanced a few tentative steps.
“Don’t worry, those hens are just as afraid of you as you are of them.”
Lydia pointed down at her shoes. “It’s not them I’m afraid of.”
“Right. Why don’t we step outside into my office?”
She continued to weave her way across the floor to me. “No, I’d rather talk in here.”
“Suit yourself then.” After all, if a Senator’s daughter and Congressman’s wife, not to mention a potential First Lady, wanted to chat with me in a chicken coop, who was I to object?
“We just got in,” said Lydia. “No sooner had we walked through the front door than this monstrous little man pounced on us and said Linda was dead. Said she was poisoned. He also said everyone here at the Inn is a suspect, at least until they get back the coroner’s report. Is that true?”
“That monstrous little man is Melvin Stoltzfus. And, yes, Linda is dead. Susannah found her in bed late this morning. As for all of us being suspects, some of us are less so than others.”
Lydia shook her head. “What a tragedy. Linda was so young. Who could have done such a terrible thing? And that man—that Mellwood somebody—doesn’t seem to possess an ounce of sensitivity. Garrett and Delbert are in there talking to him right now, but I had to find you right away.”
“Praying mantises eat their mates,” I said simply.
“What?”
“Never mind. How did you know where to find me?”
“Your sister told me. She said you find chickens comforting.” Lydia smiled as if she approved. “Magdalena, the reason I need to talk to you is because you are such a sensible woman. Why, just look, even your shoes are sensible.”
Lydia paused while I glanced down at my feet. When Susannah says that I wear sensible shoes, she means it as an insult.
“And, so,” continued Lydia smoothly, “I was hoping that you might help extricate us from a delicate problem.”
“Who is us, and what’s the problem?” The last time I was asked that question was when Susannah was still a teenager. She had wanted me to buy condoms for her boyfriend, Noah Miller. Of course I told her “no,” and then I told Noah to keep his pecker in his pants where it belonged.
Lydia smiled, and as much as I liked her, I could still tell it was a political smile. “Well, I guess by ‘us’ I meant the Congressman. You see, Magdalena, my husband has been fighting a slight problem with substance abuse.”
“Are such problems ever slight?”
She smiled again, this time patiently. “What I mean is that Garrett can still function. You know, carry on with his duties. But he does have a problem, I’m not denying that.”
“I see.”
“But I’m afraid you don’t.” Lydia reached out and grabbed my sleeve with a perfectly manicured hand. “We aren’t here as hunters this week, Magdalena. In fact, hunting is the farthest thing from our minds.”
“Then why are you here? The food?” That was supposed to have been a little joke.
Lydia didn’t even smile. “We’re here scouting out a new rehabilitation clinic in the Laurel Mountains. The Grossinger-Beechman Clinic. Have you heard of it?”
I nodded. There had been a big stink about it in the Hernia Weekly Herald. Something about drug-crazed rock stars invading our peaceful domain to get their heads screwed on straight at the risk of our homes and hearths. Since I hadn’t recognized any of the names, and it was all privately funded, I hadn’t paid the matter any attention.
“The first day we were here, Monday, Garrett did go hunting, but just as a ruse to get them off his scent. Today, however, we headed straight for the clinic, where he had his interview. Tomorrow, he had planned to commit himself for a three-week stint.”
“And you planned to keep all this a secret?”
“From the press, surely. And from that awful woman, Jeanette Parker, who is worse than the press. That woman has been relentless in her persecution of Garrett ever since he took office. She is obsessed with her crusade to do him in politically.”
“And that awful woman, of course, just happens to be your husband’s ex-lover.”
I did not mean to be cruel. Nonetheless, Lydia’s mouth fell open like a trapdoor with a sprung lever. “You know about that?”
“The walls have ears, Lydia, or in this case make it the floorboards. Take it from an experienced innkeeper, whenever you’re not in your own home, you’re in public.” Boy, did I know the truth of that statement. Susannah and I had been living in a fishbowl, albeit of my own making, for ten years now.
Lydia didn’t seem to appreciate my advice. “What else did you hear?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What else did you hear through those floorboards, Magdalena?” Even classy people can sound nasty if they try hard enough.
“Well, you needn’t worry about that!” I had begun to get huffy myself. “Susannah has oiled all the bedsprings.”
Lydia laughed then, perhaps with relief. “Well, I guess I did get carried away there for a moment. Anyway, what I came to ask you, Magdalena, was for help in keeping this matter a private one.”
“I see,” I said, although actually I didn’t. “How on earth can I help in that regard?”
Lydia rubbed the sole of one of her expensive shoes against a clump of straw. “Well, you are well-known in the community here, and I imagine you exert a considerable amount of local influence. Perhaps you can talk this young officer, whom you seem already to know, into not disclosing publicly where Garrett was today or what his plans are. You know, use some of that influence. After all, it has nothing to do with young Linda, and revealing it could be disastrous to his career.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Me? Influence Melvin Stoltzfus? I can’t even get my sister to pick up her dirty underwear. But speaking of which, Susannah is the one you should be talking to. If anyone can influence Melvin, she can.”
Lydia seemed taken aback. “Well, then,” she said at last, “could you talk to your sister for me? This is a difficult subject for me to talk about, as you might imagine, and I haven’t really gotten a chance to know your sister.”
I studied Lydia Ream for a moment. I savored that moment. There is something uniquely satisfying about having a rich, elegant, well-bred socialite beg for one’s help in a chicken coop. “Okay, I’ll talk to Susannah, but I doubt if it will do any good. If Melvin Stoltzfus has already made up his mind about something, it simply won’t be possible for anyone, even Susannah, to change it.”
“But you’ll have her try?”
“She’ll try, but like I said, don’t count on his being reasonable. He was kicked in the head by a bull, you know.”
“Pardon me?”
“Oh, nothing, just a joke. Now, unless you have any other requests, it’s about time we got out of here. Chickens carry fleas, you know, and when it’s cold like this, the fleas in the straw on the floor hop up on hum
ans seeking warmth.”
Lydia exited rapidly, and I followed. She might have been fleeing the fleas, but I was feeling ravenous again. Stress always does that to me. Fortunately, I still have the metabolism rate of a teenager, otherwise I’d be as big as Aunt Agnes was in her prime. When my mother’s sister died, they buried her in the packing crate her Frigidaire had come in. Even then, I’m told, they had to band the box with metal straps to keep her from popping out.
“Have lunch yet?” I called out after Lydia.
She must not have heard me, because she didn’t even answer. I can’t blame her, though, even if she did.
Women in Lydia’s league don’t often face flea infestation from henhouses. Even their dogs are dipped more often than soft-serve cones at Neubrander’s Dairy Bar.
As for me, all I could think of then was food. Fleas, and come to think of it, praying mantises like Melvin Stoltzfus, would just have to wait until after I’d had something else to eat. With any luck I would find Joel still in the kitchen and convince him to whip me up some of his famous broiled bananas. Since they were the only dish that everyone had eaten the night before, and in fact had even had an encore, they must have been good. I couldn’t wait to taste this interesting concoction.
Chapter Twenty
Joel Teitlebaum’s Famous Broiled Banana Recipe
Several large, unripe bananas
An ample supply of lemon juice
Copious amounts of brown sugar
A generous amount of cinnamon
An inquiring mind
Butter or otherwise grease an ovenproof dish. Peel and slice the bananas into quarters. Arrange seed-side up in the dish. Splash with lemon juice. Heap with brown sugar. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
Broil in the oven, about six inches from the heating element, until the brown sugar begins to melt and caramelize (about 3 to 5 minutes). Spoon lemon juice-sugar syrup mixture from the pan over the bananas and serve hot.
Chapter Twenty-one
Unfortunately Joel was not in the kitchen. Doc still was, however, and he was happily making himself a plate full of fried baloney and ketchup sandwiches. He asked me to join him, and of course I accepted.
“Want some fresh eggs to go with that?” I asked. Pertelote’s issue was still warm to the touch.
Doc said he would, and I got out another pan and fried up Pertelote’s egg and three others. I like my eggs greasy, slightly runny, and almost black with pepper. Doc likes them the same way.
“Called Ed Houlihan, while you were out,” said Doc casually. Mr. Houlihan was the county coroner, a trained pathologist, and a contemporary of Doc’s. They’d started in medical school together, before Doc switched over to veterinary medicine. Ed was the antithesis of Melvin Stoltzfus in that he had been at his job since back in the days when God was still young. As far as I knew no one had ever run against Ed in the elections, and I don’t suppose they ever will. County coroner is not a glamorous job in these parts. That probably explains why Ed can afford to take four-day holiday weekends.
“Ed’s back finally? The autopsies are done already?”
Doc waved his spatula in annoyance. “You young people have no concept of patience. You can’t even butcher a chicken that fast. I just wanted to tell you that Ed said he’d give me a call when the results are in.”
“When do you think that will be?”
‘You’re always in a hurry, Magdalena.” He waved the spatula again. “Ed has to send a few samples from each of them down to Harrisburg, and you know how slow those boys are.”
“I see.” If they were anywhere near as slow as the boys in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, neither Doc nor I stood a very good chance of living long enough for the results to come back.
“But in the meantime, it’s pretty clear that both women died of respiratory failure. Miss Brown was apparently dead before her fall.” Doc let that sink in for a moment.
My Stoltzfus blood fought valiantly to keep me in the dark, but then the light broke through. “You mean she was murdered?” I cried joyfully. The PennDutch was mine again; Jeanette’s suit didn’t stand a chance.
Doc nodded. “It would appear so. But it’s not conclusive yet. Her falling down the stairs might have been the result of her dying, but that doesn’t automatically mean she was murdered. She may have stopped breathing for a number of other reasons.”
“And Linda? You said she died of respiratory failure as well. So then it wasn’t poison?”
Doc gave me a look that would have curdled buttermilk, had there been any out in the open. “I didn’t say it wasn’t poison. Respiratory failure is often the cause of death from fast-acting poisons. Both plant and animal poisons.”
“Animal poisons? What kind?”
“Snakes, mainly. Some marine life as well.”
“Spiders?”
Instead of getting angry again, Doc laughed. “Give it a rest, Magdalena. It wasn’t a spider that did Linda in. Ed could tell that much already.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. It’s not that I didn’t care about Linda, but I cared even more about avoiding a lawsuit for negligent housekeeping, or whatever it was they would have charged me with, had it been a spider. That is, had the spider in question been a homegrown one and not some fancy imported variety.
“If it’s any comfort,” said Doc needlessly, “that young lady died about as quickly as it’s possible to die.”
I flashed up a picture of young Linda, lying on Susannah’s bed and clutching one of Mama’s quilts. “She might have died fast, but it sure wasn’t painless. I’d just as soon go in my sleep.”
“Wouldn’t we all.”
I was about to say something witty about the way old Doc would undoubtedly depart the Earth, but my mind flitted back to the scene I’d just conjured up. There was something definitely wrong with it. Something was very much out of place, but I couldn’t seem to hold the scene in my mind long enough to figure it out.
“A penny for your thoughts,” said Doc gently.
“They aren’t worth much right now, that’s for sure. I’ve been thinking about seeing Linda lying there on Susannah’s bed, and something’s just not right.”
Doc smiled. “Besides the fact that she was dead?”
“Yes, besides that.”
Just then Freni came into the kitchen through the back door. She seemed surprised to find anyone there, especially Doc.
“Afternoon, Freni,” said Doc with what was undoubtedly forced joviality.
Freni jerked her head in acknowledgment. She was no more fond of old Doc than he was of her. The Doc / Freni feud, I’m told, goes back even to before I was born. I’m not even sure what it’s about, but I am sure it’s as clear as crystal in both their minds. Neither of them forgets anything, and both of them seem to have a genuine need to be generally disliked. Freni more so than Doc. Doc at least has Ed Houlihan and a few other old cronies to pal around with. Freni, now that Mama’s gone, has only Mose and me.
“Thanks for bringing the casserole over last night,” I practically sang out. I’m all for diverting confrontations.
“No problem, Magdalena, except, of course, that you weren’t here.”
“Sorry, Freni, but you did hear what happened to Shnookums.”
“Grown men should have more important things to do than treating English dogs,” said Freni, looking somewhere just past Doc’s ear. “Anyway, Magdalena, I’m here to start supper. Same old crowd, I suppose.” Freni opened the fridge and began rummaging around.
“You suppose right, Freni. Well, sort of, anyway. One of them’s dead.”
Her voice showed no sign of surprise. “And which one is that?”
“The young woman. Linda was her name.”
“A shame,” said Freni simply.
She started busying herself with supper preparations without clearing anything with me first, including her employment status. From the way she acted, Freni knew exactly what she planned to cook, and that was that. By the looks of what she had lined up on the tabl
e, Jeanette and Joel were simply going to be out of luck. Freni, it was clear, had come back with a vengeance.
Doc and I ate our second lunch in respectful silence. We were very careful, however, to chew our food slowly, so it should have been obvious, even to Freni, that we were not at all intimidated by her presence.
When we were quite done, I said good-bye to Doc, who had a four-o’clock appointment to spay the Methodist minister’s Doberman. Then, after a quick prayer and a couple of deep breaths, I worked up enough nerve to sneak back into the parlor. The game was essentially still the same, except for the addition of a few more players.
“Then where were you, if you weren’t hunting?” Melvin was asking the Congressman. Incidentally, Melvin used the same tone of voice with the Congressman as he did with me. I took some comfort in that.
The Congressman, on the other hand, did not seem to possess the bottomless font of patience that I am so famous for. “Look here, kid,” said Garrett, “either I’m a suspect or I’m not. If I’m not, then my whereabouts today are none of your damn business. And you can be damn sure the Governor’s going to hear about this. Delbert, give Paul a ring as soon as this cretin lets us go.”
Perhaps I did feel just a wee bit sorry for Melvin. After all, he was a local boy, and probably really was some kind of kin if I looked hard enough. “Pardon me,” I interjected, “but there’s a phone call for you, Melvin. In the kitchen.”
Melvin looked desperately grateful, although I fully expected him to chew me out later for having addressed him by his first name. At any rate, he followed me like a puppy dog into the kitchen. It was clear he wasn’t actually expecting there to be a call waiting for him, and I thought briefly, and then discarded the notion, about revising my opinion of his intelligence.