by Tamar Myers
Don grinned and made a slicing motion across his throat. “We won’t be needing your daughter anymore, doll. There’s been a script change. Fill in those forms that you were given when you checked in this morning, and make sure Steven gets the white copy. The kid will get paid for today at least.”
Norah’s mouth began to open and close like a baby bird begging to be fed, but no sound came out. Mercifully Steven appeared out of nowhere and rather forcibly began to usher the pair outside.
“You’ll pay for this!” screamed Norah at Don. Meanwhile, in a last-ditch effort to be discovered, little Sherri began to wail her tune again. There must have been a universal, if not canine, angst in her voice, because Darla Strutt’s Fifi suddenly joined in. When Susannah’s precious Shnookums began adding to the din, I put my hands over my ears to shut out the noise, but I could not shut out the sound of Mama turning over, rhythmically, in her grave.
They shot one brief scene that morning. It took almost an hour to shoot, even though the scene itself was less than a minute long. Susannah and I were not in that scene, and I’m more than grateful for that.
“Go on upstairs and get in the tub,” I heard Steven say to Martha Sims. “They’re ready for you now.”
I scooted over. “What tub? And why?”
“Stay out of this, Miss Yoder,” Steven snarled.
“This is my inn, and the tubs belong to me. So what’s this about Martha getting into one of them?”
Steven swatted Martha on the behind with a sort of ledger he was holding. “Go on, they’re waiting for you. This is your big scene.”
Martha flung me a proud look and pranced obediently up the impossibly steep stairs for which my inn is so famous.
Steven started to slip away, but I nabbed him in time. “Hold it, Bugsy!”
“Make it snappy, Miss Yoder. Time is money in this game.”
“Then I’m a millionaire,” I said. “Now, what’s this about a bathtub scene?”
Bugsy balked at answering. “Take it up with Art, or Don. I don’t write or direct the scenes. My only responsibility is to get the actors to their marks on time.”
I glanced around for the Arthur Lapata, but he was nowhere in sight. Not that it would have made any difference—I’m not all that good at interpreting nods. I did, however, see the hirsute Don leaving the downstairs commode just in time for me to intercept him.
“Yes, Miss Yoder? Make it quick, I have to direct this scene.”
I stared with fascination at his hairy visage for a second or two. “Mr. Manley, it’s about this scene. Bugsy, I mean Steven, said it has something to do with a bathtub. What’s with the bathtub?”
Don tried to rest a woolly limb across my shoulders, but I shrugged it off. “Look, darling, it’s a real cute scene that’s going to play very well. The Amishman Freddy— that’s Rip—comes into the bathroom and discovers one of the guests taking a bath.”
“Naked?”
“Of course, darling. What else? Anyway, Freddy the Amishman gets all embarrassed at first, but then he plays it cool and takes off his clothes and climbs into the tub with the lady. A lot of big laughs, guaranteed.”
My face felt as hot as if I’d been baking bread. Undoubtedly this was just a foretaste of where we’d all end up if I didn’t put a stop to the evil scene. “Over my dead body, mister!”
Don laughed and gave me a noogie with his shaggy knuckles. “Naw, the dead body comes later, when Freddy discovers that the lady in the tub won’t play.”
“It’ll be your dead body!” I screamed loud enough for everyone in inn to hear. Then I stomped off to find Arthur Lapata.
He was in the kitchen, chowing down on Freni’s shoofly pie. Freni was hovering over him like a mother bird. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she suddenly leaned over and dropped food in his mouth.
“Mr. Lapata! Are you in charge here, or is Don?”
“Calm down, Magdalena,” said Freni sharply. “Mr. Lapata is just having a midmorning snack.”
“In the meantime, Donald Manley is turning the PennDutch into a den of iniquity.”
“Nonsense,” scoffed Freni. “Arthur would never permit such a thing. Would you?”
Arthur shook his head. He might have mumbled something too, but his mouth was too full of shoofly pie for any of it to be intelligible.
“He says that Mr. Manley is very good at what he does, and that he’s already given him the go-ahead to direct a number of scenes in this movie,” said Freni. “Arthur says that Mr. Manley has impeccable instincts. He also says that—”
“Does the man actually speak?” I asked.
“Don’t be so rude, Magdalena.” Freni cut me a thin sliver of shoofly pie, and then another huge slice, which she put on Arthur’s plate.
Foolishly, I decided that the few seconds it would take to consume such a thin slice were not all that important in the grand scheme of things. I sat down and began to eat. As usual, the pie was superb.
Chapter Five
Freni Hostetler’s Recipe For Shoofly Pie
Makes 8 servings
1 nine-inch unbaked pie crust
1 ½ cups flour
½ cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
¼ cup water
¼ cup unsulphured molasses
½ teaspoon baking soda
Sift together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Cut the butter into pats and add it to the flour mixture. Using a fork, mash the butter into the flour mixture until you get a texture like coarse crumbs. Combine the water, molasses, and baking soda. Pour into the unbaked pie crust. Then spoon the crumb mixture onto the liquid. Bake at 375 degrees for thirty-five to forty minutes. Best if served at room temperature.
Chapter Six
Freni quit her job twice during lunch. The first time was when Darla Strutt lit up a cigarette and then put it out in one of Freni’s casseroles, claiming to have improved it. The second time was when it was discovered that the blackened Hawaiian mahimahi, which everyone raved about, was really a box of fish sticks that Freni had left in the oven too long. Both times Arthur Lapata came to the rescue, and by nodding, and presumably muttering, managed to smooth Freni’s ruffled feathers.
Personally, I enjoyed lunch. Don Manley was not there, and neither was Susannah, nor Martha Sims, for that matter. With the exception of Darla Strutt, who stayed only long enough to put out her cigarette, the only obnoxious person present was Bugsy Freeman. Of course Rip Oilman was there, but as long we civilians didn’t get in his way, he left us alone.
I was just reaching for a piece of Freni’s green-tomato pie when Susannah came bursting into the dining room in an explosion of fabric. “Help! Help! Mr. Manley’s been forked,” she shouted.
Of course, that didn’t make any sense to me. Then again, Susannah seldom makes sense. “Have a seat and dig in,” I said, “but don’t touch that casserole over there.”
Susannah ignored my kindness. “No! He’s been forked, I tell you. Forked!”
It was becoming clear that Susannah’s histrionics were not staged. She wasn’t even glancing over at Arthur Lapata. I swallowed the lump in my throat that is invariably the precursor of doom. “What do you mean by forked?”
Susannah made some stabbing motions with her arms.
“You don’t mean knifed, do you?”
“Forked!” screamed Susannah.
“Where?”
Susannah patted her stomach gingerly, as if she too had been forked.
“No, where is he?”
“In the barn!”
I was not the youngest person in the room, and I was wearing a dress, so there was already a crowd gathered around Don Manley when I got there. I pushed through just far enough to see what Susannah had been talking about. Sure enough, the man had a pitchfork in his belly.
Unfortunately, I have s
een corpses before. But those had been poisoned, although one had the added distinction of having been thrown down the stairs. At any rate, Don Manley, forked, was not a pleasant sight. He was still standing, as a matter of fact, because the tines of the fork were pinning him against an upright beam, like a giant moth on a specimen board. Except that moths have very little blood. This specimen seemed to have had gallons of blood. I was going to have to hire Clyde Maynard from the Meat Locker over in Bedford to help me clean it all up. Of course Runs and Reels Productions would pay for it. I’d see to that.
“Call the police,” I said to Steven. “The number is above the phone.”
Steven, along with everyone else, simply stood and stared at Don.
I sprinted back to the house myself and dialed the police. In Hernia, that puts you in touch with the paramedics as well, not that Don Manley would need them.
“Hernia police and emergency services,” a woman responded.
I recognized the voice as belonging to Zelda Root, Hernia’s assistant police chief, and breathed a sigh of relief. Because of its small size, Hernia has only two people on its police force: Zelda and the chief himself, Melvin Stoltzfus.
“Zelda, there’s been a murder out at my place,” I panted into the phone.
“I know,” said Zelda complacently. “And they’re filming it now, right?”
“Wrong! You’ve been working with Melvin too long, Zelda. This is a real murder. The assistant director’s been forked. Right through the gut.”
“Is that movie lingo, Magdalena?”
“It’s farm talk, Zelda. Somebody speared him with a pitchfork.”
“Is he still alive?”
I hadn’t thought of that. I didn’t think a person could be alive if he’d been forked to a barn beam, but people have a way of surprising you. Leah Brockmeyer managed to survive for three weeks after she slipped down her cellar stairs and broke both legs, and all she had for sustenance was a bushel of apples and a one-pint bottle of imitation vanilla.
“He might be alive,” I conceded, “but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.”
“I’ll call the Bedford paramedics anyway, and give Melvin a call. It’s his day off, but he’s probably at home, washing the squad car.”
“Give the poor guy a break and let him have his day off,” I hastened to say, but I was too late. Zelda had already hung up.
In fact, I hadn’t even made it back out the door when the phone rang. “Lou Ann’s House of Perms and Magical Makeovers,” I said as convincingly as I could. “How may we help you?”
“Yoder, is that you?”
“Guilty, Melvin.”
“So it was you who stabbed the actor with the pitchfork?”
“He isn’t an actor, Melvin. He’s the assistant director. And I didn’t stab him.”
“Then you shot him? Magdalena, did you just lie to Zelda?”
“Yes, I told her I adored you. Look, Melvin, somebody by the name of Don Manley has a pitchfork through his gut. Are you going to sit there and talk about it all day, or what?”
“You’re toying with me again, Magdalena, aren’t you? Did you or did you not stab this man with a pitchfork?”
“I did not stab him!” I clamped a hand over my own mouth, which hopefully muffled the sound a little. In my case it is risky business, shouting loud enough to wake the dead.
“You said you were guilty a minute ago.”
“Of answering the phone, Melvin, not murder.”
“Yeah, sure. How do you know it was murder, then? Maybe the guy fell on the fork.”
“He’s standing up, Melvin. Pinned to a beam like a butterfly. You know, like the ones on display in our biology room in high school.”
“I didn’t take biology in high school, Magdalena. My folks got a special exemption for me, on account of I’m allergic to the smell of formaldehyde.”
“That figures.” I mean, if Melvin had taken biology, perhaps he would have known enough not to try to milk a bull.
“What does that mean, Magdalena?”
I ignored his hostile tone. “The point is, Melvin, that there’s a man in my barn with a pitchfork through his middle, and it wasn’t an accident, and he didn’t put it there himself.”
“The first rule in police work is not to rule out anything until you have concrete evidence to the contrary,” said Melvin pompously.
“So?”
“So, maybe the guy did do it to himself. Suicide by impalement is not as uncommon as you think. The Japanese—”
“Would you care to give me a demonstration?” I asked hopefully. I hung up the phone. Experience has taught me that this was the fastest way to get Melvin out here. As long as it was going to be Melvin, and not Zelda, I wanted to get it all over with as soon as possible.
I walked, rather than ran, back to the barn. I wasn’t in a hurry to see some Hollywood honcho, even an arrogant one like Don Manley, nailed to a beam. On the way, I passed the old outhouse, which, of course, is no longer in use. The door had somehow come open, so I closed it, and not without pride. It is a six-seater, after all, the only six-seater outhouse in the county, according to old Doc Shafer, our local historian. It was built back in Great-Grandpa Yoder’s time, but even Doc Shafer can’t figure out why so many seats were needed.
Between the outhouse and the barn lies the chicken coop. Really, it is a large, fenced-in hen yard with a wooden structure housing the laying boxes. At any given moment there are likely to be as many as six to eight hens sitting on the boxes doing their thing. At least that can be explained.
I know all my chickens by name, but my favorite is Pertelote, a Rhode Island Red of great dignity. Pertelote is too old to lay anymore, but the nesting instinct still beats strong within her feathered breast. From time to time she usurps the nests of lesser hens, and if left undisturbed, hatches the adopted eggs herself. Despite the fact that Pertelote has gotten a bit cranky with advancing age, she is an excellent mother to her foster chicks, whatever their race. In fact, Pertelote had recently raised a brood of Leghorns, and I was experimenting with her on a small clutch of duck eggs, of which she seemed rather fond. Therefore, I was a bit surprised to find Pertelote out in the hen yard.
“Go back to your eggs,” I admonished her, “or Freni will fricassee you.” It wasn’t an idle threat either, because Freni has had her eye on Pertelote’s plump rump for a year or two, even though shoe leather would be more tender than a chicken Pertelote’s age.
Of course Pertelote ignored my warning, and I made a mental note to check on her surrogate eggs when I had time. Duck eggs are, after all, larger than chicken eggs, and an old thing like Pertelote might find the task of straddling them day in and day out a bit wearing.
Anyway, it took me a couple of minutes to get back to the barn, so I guess I’m responsible for what happened while I was gone. Steven, alias Bugsy, had managed to pull the pitchfork out of the beam, and in doing so, out of Don. It hadn’t been Steven’s intent to pull the fork out of Don, it had simply been an accident, one of which no one seemed to disapprove. The sight of Don impaled like a shish kebab concerned folks more than did the damage they might cause him by removing the fork. Don now lay prone at the base of the beam, although the pitchfork was nowhere to be seen. Almost as startling to me as Don’s new position was the fact that his face had gone from white to gray.
“What on earth happened?” I demanded, elbowing my way through the crowd.
“We had to get him off the post,” said a cameraman who I think was named Al. “He was still alive, you know.”
“He couldn’t have been!”
“But he was,” said one of the makeup girls. Her name I knew. It was Heather, one of those ubiquitous plant names so popular in the seventies. Although just a child herself, this Heather looked like she was about to give birth to a whole field of Heatherettes.
I just shook my head. He was definitely dead now. I’m no expert, but I’ve seen pot roasts with more life in them than Don had at that moment.
“He
spoke,” said Al. “We all heard him say something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” said Heather. “Something.” She started to cry.
“I think it started with ‘M,’” said Al.
“He was probably calling for his mother,” I explained, although it was hard to imagine Don Manley ever having had a mother. Even if she were still alive, the San Diego Zoo would probably not release her without a lot of red tape.
Steven spat on his hands, and then rubbed them on his pants. Apparently he had gotten blood on them while unpinning Don. “Did you make the call?”
The sounding siren of Hernia’s one squad car answered for me. A few seconds later, the Bedford paramedics pulled up as well.
Chapter Seven
“But you’ve known me my whole life!” I protested.
Police Chief Melvin Stoltzfus rotated his head slowly in my direction. For some reason, he’d been looking at Zelda, who, I think, was supposed to be taking notes. It was not inconceivable that he had a crush on her. “Familiarity is not a legal defense, Yoder.”
“But I’m a Mennonite! A pacifist. I don’t go around stabbing people with pitchforks.”
“There’s a first time for everything. And Mennonites do commit crimes of violence. Remember Leyland Neubrander? He ran over his mother-in-law with a combine in November of eighty-three.”
“You weren’t even a policeman then,” I reminded him. The three of us were standing alone in the barn with the door shut. Outside I could hear the crowd milling and murmuring.
Melvin’s huge head bobbled momentarily on his long, thin neck, as if it were trying to steady itself. There is something about Melvin, perhaps his bulging eyes, that always reminds me of a praying hands. “I may not have been on the force then, Magdalena, but I know the case. Leyland Neubrander is my cousin.”
That didn’t surprise me. Melvin Stoltzfus is my cousin too, if you go back far enough. That’s something I try to refrain from doing in his case.
“Forget Leyland Neubrander and his being a Mennonite. The point is that I’m not a killer.”
