by Tamar Myers
“Ding dang dong dung!” Thanks to an endless series of stressful situations, I could now swear like a trooper.
The Babester laughed. “Well, it was dung, wasn’t it?” Ignoring his crude remark, I trotted over to inspect the damage to my property. Believe me, by now any trace of the vermouth was well on its way to Vermont. I could think as clearly as Sean Penn.
And I needed every wit about me to process the awful sight. This wasn’t just a pile of dirt; it was a wall of dirt that encircled what had been the perimeter of my manure heap. In the center was a hole, perhaps ten feet square and some three feet deep. As for the haufa mischt, it was scattered hither, thither, and yon around the farmyard. In fact, I was stepping in some that very moment. Thank heavens it was well rotted and beyond the smelling stage.
“Well, it looks like a good start on a swimming pool anyway,” Gabe said. “Of course, it needs to be much longer if you plan to swim laps. And maybe another foot deeper. Plus, you’d do well to forget about installing a diving board, no matter how deep you make it. Private pools produce a lot of broken necks—even the ones that are supposedly deep enough.”
“This isn’t a pool,” I wailed, furious at myself for not having figured it out sooner. “It’s a treasure pit.” “Come again?”
“It’s a family legend. The key to the Hochstetler for-tune is supposed to be hidden somewhere in and around Hernia. Possibly buried. Only the descendants can claim it. Anyway, I cleverly planted the idea in two of my guests’ heads—Capers and Teruko—that the treasure was buried under my manure pile. They obviously fell for the bait.”
“Do you think they found it?”
A brunette can be just as dense as a blonde—which shouldn’t be a surprise, I guess, since most blondes started out that way. I tried not to give my beloved a pitying look.
“Of course there wasn’t treasure there, or I would
have dug it up myself I just wanted to get the manure turned over this fall, so I could have a nice fertile vegetable plot next spring. Carrots grown in well-rotted haufa mischt are the deepest orange you’ve ever seen. But my real objective to planting this idea was to see if either of these guests believed strongly enough in the legend to follow any lead.” I peered down into the hole. Too bad it wasn’t a lot deeper. How handy it would be to lower a long rope and hoist up freshly cooked Chinese food. Guests wouldn’t rebel then.
“They may have fallen for the bait,” Gabe said quietly, “but that doesn’t mean they were the primary rats.” “I beg your pardon?”
“Your guest—Mr. Porter, right?—was murdered before this hole was dug. And he was found near another hole, from which the time capsule went missing. One can’t make any reasonable conclusions from that. Different guests could have made different holes.”
“Don’t poke pins in my balloon,” I wailed. “And anyway, Miss Mukai and the Littletons are awfully chummy. That very first night, when the taxi drove off with Miss Mukai’s luggage, Capers Littleton offered to lend the girl some of her clothes. What do you make of that?” Gabe shrugged. “That Mrs. Littleton is a gracious Southern lady?”
“Cahoots!” I cried. “They’re in cahoots!”
Gabe threw up his hands. “You’re the expert, hon. Whatever you say.”
“Don’t patronize me, Gabriel Ephraim Rosen.”
“Oh, the full-name treatment, is it? Well, two can play that game, Magdalena Portulacca Yoder.”
“Maybe, but my mother doesn’t tuck me in at night.”
“That’s being childish,” he had the chutzpah to say. Well, I could be just as childish if I put my mind to it. Probably even more so. Instead, I put my hands on my hips and stamped a long, narrow foot.
“You’re right, I am the expert. So just go home and do whatever it is you do to fill your days. Write those silly little mysteries, for all I care.”
“Fine. In the meantime you can make this hole even deeper. Hey, I know, why don’t you give it a name—like the Great Hole of Hernia? I bet you could charge admission.”
“Just maybe I will. I’m sure I’ll make more money from it than you will from your books—if you ever manage to sell one.”
“That was a low blow.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, but he may as well have been shouting. Without even giving me an angry glare, he turned and walked away.
“You idiot!” I said. “What do you know about relationships? Nothing, that’s what. Don’t be a total fool. Apologize this minute.”
I was talking to myself. Gabriel Ephraim Rosen was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Okay, he was a bit of a mama’s boy, but so what? Doc was going to take care of that. Why, then, was I so irritated with him? Because he had stated the obvious about my conclusions? That they were invalid? Did this mean I was no more competent than my nemesis, the Mantis?
Well, the truth hurts, as they say. In order that my ego didn’t have to suffer alone, I kicked one of the mounds of dirt that surrounded the “Great Hole of Hernia.” My toe hit a stone.
Angrily, I kicked a second pile with my other foot. Then another pile. There were eight piles in all—eight piles? I counted them three times. Sure enough, eight was the magic number. But that had to be a coincidence. Even if Capers and Terri had shared my misinformation with Octavia Cabot-Dodge—well, a woman her age couldn’t possibly have dug a hole this large by herself. And if by some miracle she had, surely there would be another clue.
I circled the pit like a hawk over a field fire, one intent on catching mice. What was I missing? Nothing, that’s what. There was nothing untoward that I could see about that pit and the eight piles of dirt—well, except that one was a tad smaller than the others. Wait, a minute. One was also considerably larger than the others. But they all had stones.
Stones! That was it. The dirt on my farm does contain stones, but it’s not like I live in a gravel pit. Yet each pile appeared peppered with stones. My heart raced as I began to count the stones on the nearest pile. Just as I suspected; there were eight on the first pile. Eight on the second. Eight on all eight piles, and not a stone more.
“Aha,” I said, as the lightbulb went on in my otherwise empty head. Given my pale eyes, it probably shone right through them, bestowing on me the look of one possessed.
“Mom!”
Bless Alison’s heart. I hadn’t seen the child approach. But to be fair, I was every bit as startled by her sudden appearance as she was by my glowing peepers.
“Not to fear, dear,” I assured her. “Your old mom just had an epiphany.”
“Mom, do we have to talk about religion now? Babe just ate my hair.”
“What?”
“My hair!” she shrieked. “What’s the matter, ya blind?”
When the girl first came to live with me, her head was decked out in spiked hair the color of a ripe eggplant. The first thing I made her do—after losing the body- piercing jewelry—was to undo the spike and get her locks back to their original color, a rich shade of chestnut brown. Over the past eight months it had grown to the point where it no longer attracted undo attention.
“Alison, I don’t see—” I gasped. A huge chunk of hair from the left side of her head was missing.
“Ya see now, don’tcha?”
“The pig did that?”
“Yeah, and I was just getting to like my hair that way.”
“Why did you let him—I mean, how did that hap-pen?”
“Well, I kind of fell asleep out there in the meadow. And the next thing I knew he was chewing away. Mom, I hate him.”
At least there was a bright side to this catastrophe. “As a matter of fact, dear, I was just about to suggest that we reconsider—”
“And he peed in your bed.”
“What?”
“When I woke up this morning you were gone and the bed was all wet. I. know I didn’t do it, so it had to be him.” She put her hands on hips that were just beginning to round. “Unless it was you.”
“Moi?” I put my hands where my hips should have been
. “I’ll have you know, young lady, that I haven’t wet the bed since high school.”
“See? So it was him. Mom, I hope ya don’t get mad or anything—like holler real loud—but I’d kind of like to ... well, get rid of him.”
“Oh.” It was all I could do to not jump up and down with joy.
“Actually,” she said, averting her eyes, “I was more like hoping you would let me sell him.”
“Child of my heart!” I cried and clutched her to my bony chest.
She pushed out of my embrace and then glanced at the road behind me. I turned just in time to see two cars, the Littletons’ and the Nortons’, pull into my driveway. Heaven forbid anyone saw a kid being hugged by her mom—even a foster one.
“Ya don’t have ta get all weird on me.”
“Sorry. It was probably just an electrical impulse beamed down on me from a satellite. Where’s the little monster now?”
“In the barn. So, it’s all right with you? Selling him, I mean.”
“Sell away,” I said happily.
“And I get to keep the money, right?”
“Right as rain. Unless you want me to invest it for you.”
“Nah.” It was obvious she couldn’t wait to get into the house and start making her calls. Not that she would get a lot of money for a single piglet in a farming community, but knowing Alison as I did, I had no doubt the critter would fetch a lot more than it was worth.
I would have insisted that Alison stay long enough to hear at least the short version of the “saving money speech.” But before I could open my nagging trap, the most incredible thing happened.
29
“Will you look at that!”
Alison was already halfway to the house and the nearest phone. No doubt visions of a shopping trip into Bedford danced through her head.
Never mind. I don’t mind talking to myself. After all, I find that I am my own best listener. And rarely do I interrupt myself.
“What on earth is that down-on-her-luck diva doing with the Littletons? She has her own chauffeur, for crying out loud. Well, she doesn’t look too happy, that’s for sure. Then again, when has she looked happy? Slap that woman’s mug on a jar of pickles, and it will sell itself Now there is a business opportunity I should seriously consider. I could call the company Cabot-Dodge Dill Pickles. My slogan could be ‘The taste so tart it’s guaranteed to wipe the smile off your face.’ Should go over well at church suppers across the country. And if dour diva refused to sell rights to her likeness, I could always try one of my own photographs.”
Although I rather enjoy my private conversations, seldom do my questions get definitive answers. There-fore, I trotted over to greet my guests to give them the third degree. Unfortunately, they saw me coming and all but one of them hightailed it into the house. The only reason I was able to catch the diva is because she was trapped in her stair-counting ritual.
“Miss Cabot-Dodge,” I said, mustering the fake cheer that comes with years of inn keeping, “where are your staff?”
“Ha!” she barked. “Staff. That’s a joke if I ever heard one.” Then, because she’d lost count, she retreated to the bottom step.
“They are planning to show up for lunch, aren’t they?”
“Whether or not they miss lunch is not my concern, Miss Yoder.”
“But it is mine. If I have to throw away a lot of food—”
“Well, I paid for it, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but—”
“The nerve of those two, after all I’ve done for them. Always complaining that their wages are too low. But where would they be if I hadn’t supported them all these years, tell me that?”
“Somewhere different?”
“Ragsdale to riches, that’s what she thought it would be.” The diva sat to deliver the rest of her diatribe. “But she didn’t have the talent. I did. And she certainly didn’t have the skills to be my manager. Kept saying the parts weren’t coming in, but a good manager would have known how to bring them to me. At least get me a competent agent. But no, not Augusta. Like Jacob and Esau, Mama always said. From the very beginning I had a hunch that things wouldn’t work out. I should have followed my instincts and gone it alone. Now look where I am.”
“Sitting on my front steps?”
“Blood may be thicker than water, Miss Yoder. But at least you can drink water.”
My legs were shaking so hard I found myself forced to sit on the opposite side of the steps. “Where are they now?”
“Running their own errands—and in my limousine.”
“Miss Cabot-Dodge, are you and Augusta twins?”
It’s a good thing the Good Lord created cartilage, because her reworked skin could not have held those jaws together by itself. That’s how wide her mouth opened. For the record, Octavia Cabot-Dodge has had her tonsils removed.
“How did you know?”
“That Jacob and Esau reference. Plus the fact that you were obviously both born in August. You know, Octavia—Augusta.” I slapped my forehead, but gently of course. My hands may be bony, but they can deliver quite a punch. Plus my palms still hurt. But why hadn’t I seen that connection before?
“Ha! For all you know, I was named after Mark Antony’s wife.”
“Yes, but in Hernia that would make you Elizabeth Taylor. We’re not the most sophisticated folks, you know.”
“What makes you think I’m from Hernia?”
“You just said you were. ‘Ragsdale to Riches’ you said.”
She glared at me. “Ha! You must think you’re really clever, Miss Yoder.”
“Only some of the time. Right now I’m having a hard time coming up with a reason for your visit. Nostalgia, I can understand. But if that’s it, why not be open about your roots—small town girl makes good, that kind of thing?”
“Coming here was my sister’s idea, not mine. She thought it would make me grateful for how far I’ve come.”
“Has it?”
Her glare intensified. “Surprisingly so. I’m grateful to have left this narrow-minded community behind. And you know as well as I do, Miss Yoder, that Hernians do not consider being a movie star a badge of success.”
“Narrow minds keep the devil away,” I said, quoting my mother. I didn’t agree, but Mama’s mind was so narrow, she had room for only one thought at a time, and I’m sure it was never put there by the man with the pitchfork.
“Ha!”
“Miss Cabot-Dodge, did you drive all the way from California?”
“Of course not! My chauffeur did. Airline fares are ridiculous these days.”
“You could have flown by yourself.”
“Ha! You don’t know Augusta.” She had nothing further to say. And although it must have been humiliating, especially under the circumstances, she completed her ritual and climbed the stairs.
I turned away to give her privacy. Besides, now that all the pieces were finally falling into place, I was back on the job. But before I rolled up my sleeves (to a modest elbow length) I had to run my theory past the person in Hernia who was best suited to answer my one remaining question.
Doc put the plate in front of me almost shyly. “It’s not much, I’m afraid. Blue’s radar must be down. Anyway, it’s just some chicken and walnut salad with a bleu cheese dressing. Avocado wedges and ripe tomatoes— those are late tomatoes from my own garden, by the way. At least these,” he said, placing a basket of crescent rolls in the center of the table, “are made from scratch. Not out of those tubes. I know, folks say it’s a lot of trouble to make fresh ones, and you can’t tell the difference from the tube ones, but I say they’re wrong. Take one— tell me what you think.”
I voted by taking two. That was just the first round.
Altogether I had six rolls and three helpings of the chicken salad, but just one slice of the quadruple chocolate cake with mocha icing, and real chocolate-covered coffee beans on top for decoration.
“You should enter that cake in the Bake-Off, Doc.”
“I plan t
o. Got to be there at two sharp. That’s why lunch isn’t anything to write home about.”
“But it’s really good, nonetheless. This is the tastiest chicken salad I’ve ever eaten. Really moist.”
“That’s because it’s beer butt chicken.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Grilled it this morning. You see, you stick a can of beer up—never mind. I’m sure the only thing you need to know is that the alcohol cooks oft”
Like it did with Freni’s Vermont chicken. But if I’d drunk the beer straight from the can—well, there was no point dwelling on past sins.
“Doc, you know a lot about human diseases, don’t you?”
He cocked his head. “Not as much as that handsome young stud of yours. Why don’t you save your question for him?”
“Because Gabriel and I—” I sighed. “Because we’re not communicating well at the moment, that’s why.”
“How about his mother? Did you communicate with her?”
“The woman is hot to trot,” I said, borrowing one of Susannah’s seemingly meaningless phrases.
Doc rubbed his hands together. “Excellent!”
“Glad to be of service,” I said, as I swallowed more irritation than salad. “Now that I’ve gotten you lined up with a date, how about answering my question.”
“Which is?”
“What do you know about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?”
“So it’s finally gotten that bad, has it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t worry, Magdalena, your secret is safe with me.”
“But I don’t have a secret,” I wailed. “I’m not talking about me.”
He smiled encouragingly. “Let’s pretend you’re not. I just want you to know that they have ways of treating this disorder these days. Some of those antidepressant drugs are said to be very useful, especially in conjunction with talk therapy. It’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of. You come by it honestly, you know.”
“I do? I mean, I don’t—because I don’t have it.”
“Your mama—now there was a fine specimen of a woman—always had to put her right stocking and shoe on first.”
