by Tamar Myers
“Abstract expressionist paintings have their merit,” he said crisply.
“Yes, but do the artists have talent? You certainly do.”
He said nothing.
“You needn’t be afraid of talking to me, dear. I’m not crazy. Your wife gave me the walnut shell test this morning and I passed with flying colors.”
“She told me. And incidentally, we don’t use the word ‘crazy’ in our profession.”
“Well, do you believe her?”
“I believe her.”
“So why are you being so aloof?”
He sighed and put his brush in a little jar of water. “Because I don’t like you.”
“What?” I was so shocked I had to sit down, and since this pasture has at times been used to actually graze cows, I chose my spot carefully.
“There’s no law that says I have to like everyone I meet,” he said. “I’m sure you don’t like me either.”
“That may be true now, but it wasn’t just a few minutes ago. Why don’t you like me?”
“Look, coming here for vacation was my wife’s idea. I made it quite clear to her that I wasn’t interested in visiting a culture that’s so segregated.”
“Segregated? What do you mean by that?”
He laughed. “Surely you’re joking. Come on, Miss Yoder, how many black Amish do you know?”
I swallowed. “Well, none, but that doesn’t prove anything. I mean, it’s a culture as well as a religion. But anyone is welcome to join.”
“I bet.”
That was true, although very few outsiders have joined the faith in this century. Although believers would be welcomed in theory, they would find it very hard to live in a society where virtually everyone else is related by blood. And—this pains me to even think about it—a family of white converts would find it easier to blend in than would a family of color.
“There are lots of black Mennonites,” I said defensively.
He looked around the pasture in a mocking gesture. “Where?”
“Maybe not here, but in other towns—Philadelphia, for instance—and in other states. And there are hundreds of thousands of them in Africa.”
“You don’t say.”
“Is that a taste of my own medicine, Doctor?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sarcasm. Purportedly I’m quite an expert on that myself.”
His smile was genuine. “I may change my mind after all.”
“About?”
“Liking you.”
“Don’t do me any favors, Doc. The feeling may not be mutual.”
“Are you always so straightforward?”
I didn’t have to think about that. The answer was no. I was, in fact, rather quiet the first three decades of my life. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say, it’s just Mama usually said it for me, or corrected, often publicly, what I did say.
Susannah, on the other hand, was given free rein. When she told Mrs. Lehman that her coffee cake was “as dry as straw,” Mama had nodded in agreement and suggested the woman add more water the next time, or use a little less flour. And when Susannah told Mr. Kreider he sang like a frog, Mama had merely smiled behind her hymnal. When, at a church picnic, my little sister informed Reverend Lantz, our then pastor, that she smelled something bad whenever he raised his arms, Mama had practically beamed with pride. Of course, the good Reverend’s body odor was a major concern for the members of Beechy Grove Mennonite Church, many of whom had stopped attending just on that account. There had even been a meeting of the elders to discuss what to do about the situation. One suggestion had been to send the pastor an anonymous letter, along with a bar of soap and a tube of roll-on deodorant, suggesting he use the toiletries from time to time, perhaps on Sunday mornings. The problem was no one wanted to offend the Reverend, who was really a very kind and gentle man. Then along came my little sister and her mouth, and the next Sunday I could actually breathe in church without holding a handkerchief over my face. But you can be sure if I had told Reverend Lantz the very same thing, I would have had to eat the bar of soap. Maybe even the deodorant.
At any rate, in my thirty-third year two things happened to loosen my tongue. First was the death of Mama; without her to shush me, my tongue gradually began to do more than just taste. The second incident—and this is undoubtedly an outgrowth of the first—was my realization that my own life was one third over (we Yoders tend to be long-lived, tunnel accidents excepted) and I had millions of things yet to say.
“Life’s too short to beat around the bush,” I said to Dr. Hanson. “An old man like you should know that.”
He laughed. “I’d offer you my chair, Miss Yoder, but an ‘old man’ like me needs to sit.”
“I’ve already got the grass stains,” I said cheerfully. “It’s really not necessary.”
“Tell me about yourself, Miss Yoder.”
“That’s Magdalena. And you’re not trying to shrink me, are you?”
He laughed again. “Call me George. And no, I’m not doing my doctor thing. I have a feeling you wouldn’t co-operate if I did.”
“You’ve got that right. So, what do you want to know?”
“Are you from here? I mean, born and raised.”
“You might say that. My family founded Hernia two hundred and twenty-three years ago.”
He whistled. “That’s a long time. I have no idea where my family was then. Maybe on a slave ship headed toward the Carolinas.”
“Amish didn’t own slaves,” I said quickly. “That stream you may have crossed on your way here—just outside of town—is called Slave Creek. No one knows why for sure, but several historians have speculated it was named that because runaway slaves from Maryland followed it up to freedom. I’d like to think that my ancestors fed and clothed them.”
“Easier on your conscience that way, huh?”
“I don’t have a guilty conscience,” I snapped. And then, remembering our truce, arranged my mouth in a facsimile of a smile. “How about you, George? Where are you from originally?”
“Orangeburg, South Carolina.”
I tried to whistle, but sounded like a teakettle with the lid half off. “You’re a long way from home.”
“Came up north to go to school. Harvard. Got all my degrees there. Met Dr. Hanson—I mean, Margaret, as a freshman med student. We shared a cadaver.”
“How exciting.”
“Actually, it was. I proposed to her over the spleen.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m dead serious.”
“And you thought I was nuts.”
“Ah, ah, ah, we don’t use that word, remember?”
“I thought it was ‘crazy.’ ”
“Same thing.” George removed his brush from the water jar, and pressed the bristles carefully between two folded paper towels. “You paint, Magdalena?”
“I don’t have any talent—except for making money. I do all right at that.”
“I’m not surprised. You have any hobbies?”
I shrugged. “I quilt.”
“Yes, yes. That big quilt I see on the frame in the dining room—did you do that?”
“Didn’t you read your brochure? That quilt is there for the benefit of customers who want to try their hand at Amish crafts. You’re welcome to add a few stitches if you wish.”
“But you started it, right?”
“Right.” The truth be known, the quilt is there for my benefit as well. Each time one is completed, I haul it over to Lancaster County, where Amish goods sell at a premium. Selling it as authentically Amish is not dishonest, mind you, since Freni adds a stitch or two whenever she has time.
“Ever create your own designs?”
“I’m not creative,” I mourned.
“I bet you are. You just haven’t given yourself a chance.”
“You’d lose.”
We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. While George added a second, smaller turtle to the log, and a couple of ca
ttails to the bottom-right-hand corner, I pondered my pitiful contribution to life. No children, no works of art, no important discoveries, no cures for anything, just a silly bed-and-breakfast and enough money in my checking account to choke a goat named Amanda.
Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the entire sum of my accomplishments. I did teach Sunday School, I looked after Susannah whenever she was truly in trouble—which is to say, at least once a week—and I helped Melvin solve Hernia’s most difficult crime cases. In other words, nearly all of them. If I had one talent, besides the ability to make money, it was to ferret out the truth. “It takes a liar to know one,” Mama used to say. Well, I most certainly am not a liar, but I have shaded the truth a few times, and from my vantage point in the dappled shade, I can usually spot a liar.
“I don’t mean to brag,” I said, “but I am a damn good private detective—pardon my language.”
George’s brush paused in midstroke. “Really?”
“Oh yes. Our Chief of Police Melvin Stoltzfus is a total nincompoop. He once gave his favorite aunt a gallon of ice cream.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“He sent it by UPS. Anyway, Melvin needs my help more than a duck needs water.”
“Doesn’t he have a department?”
“This is a very small town, George. His department consists of Zelda Root, Assistant Chief of Police. Zelda is great at mediating domestic disputes, picking up dead animals and disposing of them—oh, and she hangs out at the high school whenever there’s a game. But just between you and me, Zelda couldn’t find her bosoms if it weren’t for her bra.” I giggled nervously, thinking maybe I’d overstepped the boundary of intimacy in a friendship as new as ours.
But George smiled and nodded. “I see. Well, what is it the Chief himself does?”
“Traffic tickets.”
“In a little town like this?”
“We get lots of tourists, and Melvin isn’t above ticketing Amish.”
“Whatever for?”
“Road apples.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The product of equine elimination,” I said, “if you prefer a more delicate phrase. There is a town ordinance requiring horses to wear a sort of diaper, but most of the Amish don’t comply—it’s just too much trouble.”
“Hmm. I always thought of them as being law abiding.”
“Well, they are. For the most part. One family actually upped and moved to Ontario, rather than break a law they felt was silly.”
“Road apples and lovers’ quarrels. It doesn’t sound like you get to exercise your detecting skills very often.”
“Oh, but I do. There have been more murders here than you might think. Kidnapping too. And now I’m working on a drug case.”
George put the brush back in water and folded his hands over the barest suggestion of a paunch. “You don’t say.”
“Actually it’s a murder slash drug case.”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“I wish I was. The victim was a middle-aged Mennonite housewife. The coroner says she died of—”
He held up a hand. “Magdalena, should you be telling me all this?”
“Actually, I was hoping maybe you could help.”
“Me?”
I could tell that he was offended. “It has nothing to do with your race, or the fact that you come from a big city. I was hoping for your professional opinion.”
“As a psychiatrist?”
“Yes.”
He sighed. “But I’m retired. You should be talking to my wife. For a fee.”
“Well!” It was my turn to be offended.
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist it. So, what is it you want to know?”
“How can you tell if someone is crazy—I mean, has parted company with reality.”
He chuckled. “Now that’s a good way of putting it. But you’re right, it is sometimes difficult to tell.”
“You and your wife seemed pretty certain that I was cra—uh, had parted, so to speak.”
George grimaced. “Touché. You did seem a bit stressed. At first. But it has since become quite clear that you function well within the parameters of what appears to be normal in this community. Although I still say a cat in one’s cleavage is pushing the envelope.”
I grinned. Little Freni had chosen that very moment to stretch, turn, and resettle herself in my right cup. I’m sure all that movement appeared odd when viewed from outside my dress.
“She’s only a little kitten. When she gets over two pounds, then out she goes. So anyway, how can you be sure someone has genuinely slipped over the line, or if they’re just faking it?”
He nodded. “Ah, your cook. Trust me on this one. Both Margaret and I—”
“I’m not talking about Freni,” I wailed. “I’m talking about him!”
“Who?”
“Him!” I pointed to the man approaching us from the direction of Hertzler Road.
19
George removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and put his glasses back on. “I still don’t see anyone.”
“That’s because he’s wearing a camouflage suit and is crawling along on his belly.”
George repeated the ritual just to be polite. This time, however, he did see something. He stood for a better look.
“A fat little man with red hair?”
“Joseph Mast. And he’s not so much fat, as husky. He’s a carpenter by trade.”
“Why is he doing that?” Hernia was turning out to be a rich source of material, should George ever decide to publish a textbook on nut—I mean, parted-from-reality cases.
“He thinks he’s in Vietnam. No doubt he’s trying to avoid detection from the Viet Cong.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“He’s my prime suspect in the drug/murder case. My only suspect, in fact. Say, you don’t see a goat with him, do you?”
“You mean the one in the pink dress and high heels?”
“Very funny. But I’m warning you, if one does show up, just butt it on the head.”
“With what?”
“Your head, of course.”
George groaned, but mercifully kept any other comments to himself. We watched in silence as Joseph wiggled his way across the pasture toward us. He didn’t come in a straight line, but following the logic of his damaged—or supposedly damaged—mind, took advantage of grass clumps, almost infinitesimal changes in elevation, even old dried clumps of cow manure.
Finally Joseph got close enough to risk speaking in a loud whisper. “Magdalena, you all right?”
“I’m fine, dear.”
“Who is that with you?”
“Colonel Sanders.”
“V.C. ?” His eyes behind the round rimless lenses were dull, and he seemed to be looking right past me. Or maybe just inside his head.
“AC/DC,” I said and winked at George.
“It isn’t funny,” George said sternly, albeit in a whisper. “Mental illness is not a laughing matter.”
I blushed with shame. “Sorry. Joe,” I said in a normal speaking voice, “this is one of the guests at my inn. He’s a—”
“My name is George Hanson.” George stuck his hand out, but poor Joseph remained prone.
“How are Amanda and Benedict?” I asked. I wasn’t mocking him, just trying to be friendly.
That triggered something. The lights came on in Joe’s head and he stood. Bits of grass and cow dung clung to his clothing, perfecting the camouflage.
“They’re fine. Benedict can’t stop saying your name.”
“Is he still being rude?”
“He’s only a parrot, Magdalena. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“Yeah, right.” I reintroduced George, but taking a cue from him, did not divulge his profession. “So what brings you out to see me?” I asked when the pleasantries were done.
Joe rolled his eyes a quarter turn, indicating George.
“A walk?” I said brightly. “You want to take a walk?�
�
Joe looked around desperately. “Where?”
George touched me lightly on the shoulder. “I could use a walk,” he said. “Been painting too long.”
“You sure?”
“Call of nature. You think it would be all right to leave my stuff here?”
“We don’t lock our doors in Hernia, dear.”
Joe waited until George was presumably out of earshot. “My Lizzie died from an overdose of Angel Dust.”
“Yes, I know that. Melvin told me.”
“There’s your connection.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Keim boys.”
“Oh Joe, please not that again.”
“They use drugs.”
“Really?” I could only hope that the sarcasm dripping from that word wouldn’t stain my shoes.
He nodded. “I followed them last night. They met up with a bunch of other kids—maybe twenty in all. They were smoking and drinking pretty heavily, and then about an hour after that someone brought out a little brown bag, and they got into the really hard stuff.”
“Angel Dust?”
He shrugged. “I only smoked weed in Nam. I don’t know what all they were doing, but it wasted a couple of them.”
“Killed them?” I asked in alarm. He was remarkably convincing.
“No, not that kind of wasted. I mean really strung-out. You know, high.”
“Oh. How could you tell?” I have often suspected that guests at my inn—particularly the Hollywood crowd—were on something besides aspirin, but had no way of confirming my suspicions. Susannah only drinks, and usually has the good sense to stay well away when she does.
“Well, they started acting crazy.” He didn’t seem at all embarrassed by the word.
“Please elaborate, dear.”
“One of them thought he was the devil. He was jumping around trying to catch the others. Then one girl said she was you and—”
“She most certainly did not!”
“But she did. Magdalena Yoder is what she said. Of course there are other Magdalena Yoders in the county, so maybe she meant someone else.”
“You bet your bippy.”
“Anyway, this really scared some of the other kids and they left. But the girl who said she was—uh, Magdalena, and the boy who said he was Satan, they hung around. So did the oldest Keim boy. You know, the dark one. Then the other boy and girl got all quiet, like they were asleep or something, and the Keim boy tried to wake them up, but had a real hard time of it. Finally, he got them on their feet and they all left. That’s when I left too. Well, a few minutes later, of course, so they wouldn’t see me.”
