by Tamar Myers
“Holy sh—!” I can read Susannah like a three-page book and was able to clamp my hand over her mouth just in time.
“Have you tried the door, dear?” I released my hand.
She nodded. But just to be sure, I tried it half a dozen times. It was just as stuck as it had been the night before.
Now that she had calmed down considerably, my adrenaline level was falling and I realized just how cold I was. My coat had made a wonderful pillow, and Danny and I, in our enclosed space, had produced more than enough body heat to keep us warm. The open barn, however, was another matter. If Susannah and I didn’t hit the hay soon, we were going to end up as popsicles, and the PennDutch would end up as the property of a two-pound pooch, depending of course on who died first, Susannah or I.
“Come on, dear.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her into the hay pile.
“Holy cow!”
“Susannah, please! You know how I feel about swearing.”
“What’s with all these empty bottles? And what’s with that smell?”
“The bottles were here when I got here, dear, and that smell is Danny Hem. Well, most of it. You wouldn’t bother to get up in the middle of the night either if you were stuck in a barn.”
She sniffed my face like a bloodhound hot on a trail. “Way to go, Mags! You’ve been drinking too, haven’t you?”
I turned my head. “No, I haven’t. I had a few sips of an elixir to help me sleep. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh.” I might as well have told her I’d been dining with the Clintons.
“You can ask Danny,” I said. “As soon as he wakes up.” By the smell of things, Danny wasn’t going to wake up until long after our conversation was forgotten.
We pushed the empty bottles aside, as well as Danny’s legs, and settled in as best we could. Two people living in a small wagon bed is cozy. Three people and fifteen feet of fabric is a tight fit.
“So you and marvelous Marvin didn’t sail off into the sunset after all?” I asked pleasantly.
“What are you talking about, Mags? Marvin is a world-class scumball.”
“I see. Well, what I heard was that you and Marvin flew off to Aruba to get married. This, by the way, I got straight from the horse’s mouth—his secretary. Or would she be the jockey?”
There was a moment of silence, which, in a dark, moldy hay pile, can last forever. “Ha! I wouldn’t have married Marvin Stoltzfus if he was the last man alive. I was in love with Danny, remember?”
“You’ve been known to turn on a dime before, dear,” I said gently. “Besides, the last thing I saw, the two of you were headed for each other like moths to a flame.”
“You are so dense!” Susannah screamed. Fortunately, hay tends to muffle things a bit. “I was only trying to get back at Danny for dumping me.”
“Was that all?”
“Well, Aruba would have been nice, but we were barely in the airport. We never made it to the plane.”
“Oh?”
“We picked up the tickets all right, but then Marvin turned around and gave them away to total strangers. He only wanted it to look like we’d taken the flight. He had no intention of ever getting on the plane.”
“Why am I not surprised? Then what?”
“Then he dragged me off to some cheap motel—”
“Please, dear, I’ve had a long night.”
Susannah undoubtedly meant to clobber me with her clogs. I denied her the satisfaction of crying out.
“This isn’t funny, Mags. That’s when Marvin began interrogating me.”
“He what?”
“He asked me a billion questions. Most of them about you, incidentally.”
“Like what?”
“Like what were you really doing in Farmersburg. Who did you work for. How well did you know Danny Hem. That kind of thing.”
“And?”
“I told him the truth. Not that it did any good. He suspects you of something, Mags. What did you do? And why did Arnold kidnap you?”
Silence is golden as Mama said ad nauseam. I tried to follow her example.
“Well?”
I told Susannah everything I knew about the deaths of Levi and Yost. Even as I was telling her I could hear just how silly some of the information sounded. Sometimes we need to think our thoughts aloud. Chances are we’ll change directions half the time.
“Wow! Now it all makes perfect sense to me,” Susannah said.
“It does?”
“Sure. Marvy—I mean Marvin—was real nervous about you staying in Farmersburg so long. He even called the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to see if the turnpike was really closed. He said he didn’t like outsiders coming in and acting like elected officials.”
“Somebody has to do the job.”
“He called you a busybody, you know. He accused you of harassing everybody, from the town’s largest employer right down to the man on the street.”
“In this case, field,” I corrected her.
“He got real mad when I told him about your date with Danny Hem.”
“He was your date, dear. I was just the chauffeur, remember?”
“Wow, Mags. You don’t suppose he’s covering up something about our cousin’s murder, do you? Even worse, could I have been dating a murderer?”
“You can ask him yourself, dear, when he wakes up. Personally, I think Danny hasn’t seen enough daylight in the last two years to be dangerous to anyone but himself. At least not intentionally.”
The clogs connected with one of my ankles, and I yelped delicately.
“I’m not talking about Danny, you idiot! I’m talking about Marvin.” She gasped. “Do you think that’s why he dropped me off here? Do you think he plans to get rid of me?”
“Could be, dear. This seems to be the holding bin for undesirables.”
Hay can only muffle so much. I wouldn’t be surprised if Susannah’s screams—once she hits her stride—could wake the dead. I will certainly make it a point not to visit a cemetery again when she’s along. Poor Danny Hem, who may well have been dead, sat up as abruptly as Lazarus.
“Coming, Mama,” he groaned.
I pushed him gently back down, and at the risk of obliterating my lifeline, put a hand over Susannah’s mouth.
“Don’t you worry, dear. I’ll get you out of this alive. If I have to rip open the walls of this barn with my hands—”
Susannah ripped my hand away from her mouth. “I’m not worried about me, Mags. I’m worried about him!”
Who says mercy doesn’t run in our family? “Why, that’s very generous of you. Spoken like a true Mennonite. Frankly, I’m not sure I can forgive Marvin, and I’m certainly not ready to start worrying about his future.”
The clogs beat a furious tattoo on my ankles. The tap lessons Mama had allowed Susannah, but denied me, were finally paying off.
“I’m not worried about Marvin, either. I’m worried about Shnookums!”
“Shnookums?”
“Marvin’s got him,” she wailed. “Marvin’s got my baby!”
I suppressed my rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus. “What on earth do you mean? That thing is never less than six inches from you at all times. Did you check your other cup?”
Between sobs of joy I got Susannah to tell me the whole tragic story. When she was done, we were both sobbing, but for different reasons.
“Do you remember the name of the kennel you dropped him off at on your way to the airport?”
“Paws and Claws. It couldn’t have been more than a mile or two away. I remember I heard planes landing.”
“There, you see? As soon as we get out of here and get to a phone, we’ll give them a call. I’m sure Marvin only wanted to make it seem like you were really leaving the country. I don’t think he meant the little dear any harm.” I patted her knee reassuringly.
“A little higher would be nicer,” Danny said. What a difference darkness makes.
Just to show I am a good sport I obliged him. I p
atted harder, as well as higher.
“Eyow! Take it easy, babe.”
“Time to sober up, dear. We need to break out of this joint and make a run for it.”
“But I thought you said your Amish friend, Stayrook, was coming back with help.”
“So I did. Unfortunately, it’s beginning to look like something might have happened to him. If Marvin and Arnold really are in cahoots, no telling how many guys they have working for them. I think our best bet is to get out and make a run for it while we can. Who knows how soon someone will be back?”
“I know,” Susannah said.
“Did Marvin say?” I asked. Leave it to my sister to sit on lifesaving details.
“No. I know because I just heard Marvin’s car pull up outside.”
There was only a slim chance Susannah was wrong. Susannah’s ears have been trained since puberty to hear the sound of approaching cars, and distinguish them by their horsepower. Once she predicted, based solely on the sound of backfire over a mile away, that Pete Parmalee, her tenth-grade beau, was on his way to see her in a 1965 Chevy pickup with a sticky valve. The boy had just bought the truck that day and had yet to tell any of his friends. Go figure.
“Time to pray,” I said seriously.
We waited, like three frightened rabbits trapped in their burrow while the weasel, and maybe the fox, dug them out.
It turned out to be neither.
Chapter Thirty-two
“Stayrook?”
“Yah, it’s me, Magdalena. You can come out now.”
“But I’m sure I heard a car,” Susannah said.
“Thank heavens, you didn’t,” I said charitably. “Now at least we have a chance to get away.”
We scrambled out of the hay pile and clambered around our deliverer, who was holding an armful of clothes.
“Ach, there’s three of you!”
“Danny was already here,” I began. “And Susannah—”
“No time,” Stayrook said with surprising curtness. “Put these clothes on. They’ll disguise you.”
They were Amish winter clothes, thick blue dresses, black aprons, and black bonnets. Black wool capes finished the ensemble. For some strange reason there was a set for each of us.
Stayrook glanced down at my feet. “Couldn’t find any shoes large enough for those.”
I took the outfit he handed me. “Thanks,” I said dryly.
Susannah was less charitable. “Yuck. You wouldn’t catch me dead in that stuff.”
“You could be dead without it, dear.”
“All right then! But what about Danny? What’s he supposed to wear?”
Danny waved his breakfast in a bottle. “Yeah, what about me?”
“You and I will switch clothes,” Stayrook said.
“Where do we change?”
The nerve of Susannah. Despite Danny’s claims to the contrary, that woman has undressed in front of more men than has your average male recruit. Only in her case, “unraveled” is probably a better term.
Using Susannah for a shield, I managed to slip into my costume before Danny could get his eyes to focus. Susannah, of course, took her own sweet time, and completed dressing only when the goose bumps on her arms began to lay eggs, answering that age-old riddle about which came first.
I must say, given the fact that I don’t wear makeup, and had on sensible black shoes to begin with, that I looked quite passable as an Amish woman. Susannah, on the other hand, required a slight stretch of imagination. Of course, her clogs didn’t cut it, but it was the purple and green eye shadow, and what remained of her blood-red lipstick, that were the biggest tip-offs. Imitating Mama, I was able to remove most of it with a handkerchief and spit. But it was after I got her to remove the six-inch iridescent fish-skeleton earrings that things really fell into place.
Danny, despite a three-day growth of beard, simply did not look like an Amish man.
“Lose the bottle, dear,” I suggested.
That helped a little, but not much.
“Hey, since I had to remove my earrings, why doesn’t he have to remove his?” Susannah complained.
Fair is fair, and when Danny was done shedding several pounds of gold chains and bracelets as well, he might even have passed for a Yoder.
So there we were, three fairly convincing Amish and one Englisher with a full beard, but no mustache.
Something suddenly occurred to me. “Stayrook, dear, this isn’t going to work. Amish families don’t generally have English chauffeurs. And I don’t think the rest of us know how to drive a horse and buggy. Do we?”
“I can play the horses. Let me try,” Danny offered generously.
“Thanks, but no thanks, dear. Maybe we—”
I was rudely interrupted by the sound of the barn door sliding open. We all turned to see Arnold Ledbetter step inside. Several of us gasped.
“What the hell is taking so damn long?” Arnold asked, proving that he was not only crude but crazy.
“I don’t see a gun,” I whispered to my comrades. “You two guys tackle him and hold him down, and Susannah and I will tie him up with her dress.”
“But it’s out-of-stock chiffon all the way from Pittsburgh,” Susannah wailed. “I’ll never be able to find another bolt like that again.”
“Is that a promise?” Hope sometimes springs forth in the most surprising circumstances.
“Just shut up, Yoder,” Arnold said.
A gun had magically appeared in his grubby little hand, and he had it pointed straight at me.
Never trust an Amish man and a drunken playboy to tackle the bad guy for you when you can do it yourself. A well-aimed pocket book, followed by a couple of hard kicks, and Arnie would have been down for the count. Now it was the second hand on my clock that was ticking, and just when life had never been better. The thought of breathing my last just when my Pooky Bear had given me a reason to breathe made me incredibly angry. Perhaps a little incautious as well.
“Shoot if you must this old gray head,” I said, “but then you’ll have to shoot three more. Right, guys?”
“My head is not gray,” Susannah said. “Come to think of it, yours isn’t really either. Except for that one small patch—”
“Danny, dear, are you ready to stand up and be counted?”
“Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer—”
“Stayrook, dear, you, of all people, are not afraid to die for truth and justice, are you?”
“Actually, the truth is that I’m on his side,” Stayrook said.
“I beg your pardon?”
Stayrook ignored me and turned to Arnold. “Where’s Marvin?”
“Damned bastard is chickening out on us. Says he’s done too much for us already. Doesn’t want to be part of anything else.”
“Ach, I was afraid of this. What do we do now? With them?”
“Can we sit down?” Danny whined. “My feet are killing me.”
“Try walking a mile in my shoes,” Susannah snapped.
Without waiting for permission, I sat down, but first I scraped my jaw off the floor. I will confess to being just as shocked as you must be. I, of all people, should have known that the Amish, like any group, have both their saints and their sinners. Still, that an Amish man, a minister even, could be involved in multiple murders stretched even my imagination. One thing that wasn’t hard to imagine was the speed at which Stayrook’s mama was spinning in her grave. Finally, thanks to Stayrook Gerber, my mother would be shamed into retirement.
“On your feet, Yoder!”
I reluctantly obeyed. When a man with upside-down glasses waves a gun at you, it is probably best to appease him. After all, I still had a sore spot on my ear to remind me he meant business.
“Now listen up, everybody. You’re going to be taking a little trip. Anybody here in the mood to visit the pearly gates?”
“Ach! You aren’t going to shoot them, are you?” The concern in Stayrook’s voice suddenly gave me hope.
�
��Nah, got something better in mind this time, Stay. Especially for the good-looking one in the funny shoes. You”—he pointed the gun at Susannah—“sashay on over here and give Big Daddy a closer look at the goods.”
“Please, Arnold, you promised there would be no more violence.”
“I said get over here!”
My dear sweet sister tottered bravely over to the gunman. “Good cop, bad cop,” she said solemnly.
“What?” The gun swayed in her general direction.
“Stayrook is playing good cop, and you the bad. Saw it once on a TV show. But it isn’t working, you know. You’re both rotten to the core. And so is Marvin Stoltzfus. Anybody who would separate a mother and baby deserves to fry right along with the two of you.”
Arnold seemed surprised. “Thought you two were sisters. Oh, what the hell, the old one can strut her stuff too if it will make her daughter happy.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been so insulted. At least that time when Eugenia Rupp, our church secretary, refused to include my picture in the church directory on the grounds it might scare away prospective members, she did so privately over the phone. You can bet I would have given Arnold a good chunk of my mind if Susannah hadn’t come to my defense.
“Oh, you are just too stupid,” my brave sister said. “Do you think she looks like a dog? I mean, a small dog? Besides, Shnookums wouldn’t be caught dead with hair like that!”
“Et tu, Brutus?”
In the event that we survived, Susannah’s allowance was in for a major downward readjustment.
“Was that little animal you had a dog?” Danny demanded. “I thought sure it was a rat. It had teeth like—”
“Shut up, all of you!”
I don’t think Arnold had just cause to fire his gun then, but even so, a gentleman would have aimed at the hole in the roof. The avalanche of dust that followed made Susannah’s comment about my hair prophetic— Shnookums probably wouldn’t be caught dead with a mop like that. As for the rest of us, it’s a wonder none of us died from fright.
I would like to say that none of us screamed at the resounding crack, but who would I be fooling? A gunshot in an enclosed space would turn even Margaret Thatcher into a quivering bowl of jelly. At least I can say Danny Hem screamed the loudest. Susannah, of course, screamed the highest. As for me, just because I screamed the longest does not necessarily mean I am any more of a coward than the rest. You would scream too if a 180-pound Amish man, having fallen into a dead faint, was lying across your arches.
