by Tamar Myers
Anyway, after I used the toilet, I couldn’t go back to sleep again. It wasn’t that I sensed someone had just died, but because my mind was racing with thoughts about who had killed Don Manley. It might even have been the spirit of Don Manley who was putting those thoughts in my mind, but of course I would never suggest such a thing to anyone. We Amish-Mennonites firmly do not believe in ghosts, even if they stare us sometimes in the face.
About five o’clock I gave up on going back to sleep and got dressed. In the summertime that’s just when the first birds began to twitter, and it’s almost impossible to go back to sleep then under the best of circumstances. When I got outside, the sky had lightened enough so that I could see the corn tassels in the field behind the six-seater and the chicken coop. Without exactly meaning to, I found myself skirting these two buildings and heading for the barn.
Just before the main entrance to the barn is the Dutch door that leads to the cowshed. The top half was open and I poked my head in. Matilda, ever the shy one, mooed softly in the corner, but Bessie ambled over to me and snuffled my hair. “Be good girls and give Mose a lot of milk this morning,” I urged them.
I walked over to the main door. It was open about eighteen inches, which surprised me. Normally, either Mose or I close it at night. But with the camera, light, and sound equipment it now contained, we did more than close it. I specifically remembered Mose telling me that he had locked the door with a padlock at Art’s request. The padlock was missing.
I have always been a confronter, rushing headlong into difficult situations. I hate being held hostage by my own fear, preferring to act rashly than wait in agony. So, acting rashly, I slipped into the barn and felt for the light switch. Back in the days when my people were Amish, there had been no light in the barn, but my grandparents had joined the Mennonite church and were allowed electricity. It was Grandpa Yoder who had wired the barn, and he’d done a bang-up job. Then Papa improved on it by replacing Grandpa’s incandescent bulbs with fluorescent fixtures. When I flipped the switch just inside the door, the barn was flooded in light, from the pigeon-filled rafters to the bloodstained floor.
It was at that instant of revelation that I caught my glimpse of someone, or something, slipping out through the small side door that locks only from the inside. Foolishly, I called out and ran to investigate. But there was nothing revealing for me to see. On that side of the barn the woods creeps up close, and who or whatever I’d seen, had presumably been swallowed up by them.
“You should have called me first,” said Melvin both before and after a futile hike in the woods to look for clues.
“I’m sorry, Melvin. I acted without thinking. I bet you’d have done the same thing if you were me.” I meant it as a sort of compliment.
Melvin’s left eye began to wander in its orbit. “I hardly think so. What you did was to interfere with police business. And it could have gotten you killed, Yoder.”
I looked away from Melvin so as to avoid the temptation to be critical. He can’t help it if he looks like a praying mantis and has the intelligence of a moth. It is un-christian of me to dislike him so.
“Melvin, isn’t there any way you can get fingerprints from the doors?”
“Ever hear of gloves, Yoder?”
“There’s a pair I keep for milking in the cowshed,” I said cruelly.
“Very funny, Yoder. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that the trespasser was wearing gloves when he handled the doors.”
“Or she.”
“What?”
“I mean that the trespasser, as you call it, might well have been a woman.”
Melvin laughed, either that or a cicada sounded its mating call. “A woman! You’re a barrel of laughs, Yoder. Not that’s it occurred to you, but the trespasser and the perpetrator may well be one and the same. And no woman, Yoder, despite your fancy women’s lib, could pin a man to a beam with a pitchfork.”
It was my turn to laugh, and this time with relief. “I guess that leaves me out of it. I’m no longer your suspecto numero uno, then, am I?”
Melvin’s left eye scanned my face, while his right one seemed to be studying my shoes. ‘‘Have you gone mad, Yoder?”
“I’ve been close, but so far not nearly as close as you. Why?”
“Because you most certainly are still my suspecto numero uno. But with an accomplice, of course.”
“A what?”
“An accomplice. Come on, Yoder. Even Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t assassinate Kennedy by himself. The question is, who is your co-conspirator?”
Had I been handed a pitchfork just then, I might well have made a gelding out of Melvin. “For your information, Melvin Stoltzfus, there is a word for people who see plots and conspiracies everywhere. The word is paranoid. Read my lips, Melvin, I do not have a co-conspirator.”
“Ah-ha! So you admit that you killed Don Manley by yourself.”
“I admit no such thing. I couldn’t have killed him by myself, remember? I’m just a woman.”
“Exactly,” Melvin agreed. “I’ve been trying to tell you that all along. No woman, even you, Magdalena, is strong enough to drive a pitchfork through a man’s gut and pin him to a beam.”
“Would that we were,” I said dangerously.
“What?”
“Nothing. Except that you’re barking up the wrong tree, Melvin. In fact, you’re not even in the right woods. And as for your statement that the murderer could not possibly have been a woman, you’re full of—” I didn’t finish my sentence, but kicked discreetly at a pile of pigeon droppings.
“And anyway,” said Melvin as if he hadn’t heard a thing I’d just said, “it’s a fact that most women murder their victims through less violent means. You know, poison and such.”
“Lizzie Borden took an ax,” I reminded him.
“That theory has been challenged,” he said smugly.
I started to rack my brain for another example of female brutality, and then, realizing how absurd it all was, stifled a laugh of my own. There was nothing to gain by convincing Melvin that the trespasser had been a woman, and there was quite possibly something to lose from it. In the convoluted paths of Melvin’s mind, such a suggestion might well come home to rest at my feet. That the trespasser had been a woman I was becoming increasingly sure, although I could not pinpoint anything specific I had seen to back up my hunch. A hunch was all it was at the time, but a woman’s hunch, as Grandma used to say, is worth two facts from a man.
I was in one scene that morning. It was the one where Darla Strutt, having first fallen in love with the mad Amishman, Yost Yoder, and then been betrayed by that love, is tied to a beam and forked through the middle. I played Yost Yoder’s mother, Anna, who lives in a world of denial and cannot admit her son’s condition. So, you see, it wasn’t as bad as the original script, where Freddy the mad Amishman rapes women in the bathtub and then cuts their throats, but still, it was enough to keep Mama turning in her grave.
I had exactly eighteen words to say: “Ah, my darling son, what have you done now? But perhaps it isn’t as bad as it seems.” I practised saying them over an over, making them come out slightly different each time.
“Imagine Meryl Streep saying them,” Susannah suggested.
Unfortunately I have never been to a movie. However, I had played the part of Pocahontas in the eighth grade, so that’s what I based my delivery on for the camera.
“Cut!” snapped Steven. We were still in rehearsal, and the cameras weren’t even rolling.
“Shall I start over fresh?” I asked cooperatively.
Steven smirked. “Two sticks of dynamite and a bulldozer couldn’t give you a fresh enough start, Yoder.”
I prayed for patience. “I mean, do you want me to start over at the beginning of my lines.”
Steven stared at me.
“Well, should I start over again, or not?”
Steven steadfastly refused to answer. I think he was willing me to shrink to near nothing in size and fall between the cracks
in the barn floor. Clearly it was time for me to take my destiny in my own two hands, which are, after all, quite lovely. So I repeated my lines one more time, but this time I said them as I, Magdalena Yoder, would say them—if I were the mother of a mad Amishman who had just pinned his paramour to a barn beam.
“Brava!” someone shouted. “Brava!” I nearly fainted when I discovered it was Art Lapata.
“So you do have a voice,” I said when he took me aside.
Art smiled. “Yes, but I hate to waste it on riffraff.”
“Ah, so I’ve been suddenly elevated from riffraff to something else. What might that be? Scum?”
Art chuckled warmly. “I’ve had my eye on you the whole time, Miss Yoder. I immediately noticed a certain presence.”
“It’s all right to say tall. Five ten, as a matter of fact. And if you’re asking, the weather up here is just fine. Maybe even a degree or two cooler than down there, where you are.”
“And fire too,” said Art.
“You can’t fire me—I quit!” If Freni could say that— which she did with some regularity—then so could I.
Art laughed openly. “Simmer down, Miss Yoder. I have no intention of firing you. To the contrary, I’m more interested in hiring you.”
It was my turn to stare. “But I’m already hired. I work for you. I mean, I have a part in this movie.”
Art lowered his voice just a smidgen. Not that he was becoming a recluse again. I think he just didn’t want the others to hear. “This isn’t a movie, Miss Yoder, this is a grade-B fiasco. I mean, I want you in a real movie.”
Staring too long, especially in a barn, can make your eyes water. “Then why are you here, filming this, if it’s nothing but a fiasco.”
Art spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. “It’s a matter of a contract. You see, Miss Yoder, I’m under obligation to do one more picture with Reels and Runs Productions. Unfortunately for both parties concerned, the executive producer has abominable taste, and strong nepotistic tendencies.”
I put my hands over my ears. “I don’t listen to dirty talk, Mr. Lapata.”
Art gently pulled my hands away. “Nepotism is when people give preferential treatment to their relatives. In this case, the executive producer, who is also our main financier, had his nephew write the script. The original script, at any rate. The one with all the bathtub scenes.”
“That was pure trash.”
“Exactly. And although I couldn’t absent myself completely from the project, I tried to distance myself as much as I could.”
“You did a good job. I was beginning to think you were a mute.”
“If only I’d been deaf and blind as well. You see, not only did this nephew write the script, he was hired as my assistant director.”
I stared again. I’m convinced that I suffer from a genetic tendency to have the eyes remain fixedly open when shocked. “You mean that Don Manley is, or was, the executive producer’s nephew?”
Art nodded sorrowfully. “I should have fought it more. Even sued to get out of my contract if necessary. I guess I thought I was taking the easy way out.”
“The straight-and-narrow path is often the hardest, but it is the right one,” I said, quoting Mama. I don’t think you can undo grave spins, but it can’t hurt to try.
“Of course, I made a huge mistake. I see that now. And even after it was too late to back out, I should have stayed in charge. If I hadn’t let Don take over so much, he might not have been killed.”
“Maybe not here,” I said without much pity, “but sooner or later.”
“He was totally obnoxious,” Art agreed.
We talked more at supper, much to Freni’s dismay. She glowered at me every chance she got, and if she’d been one of those hexy Dutch instead of a God-fearing Amishwoman, I’m sure she’d have put a spell on me. Of course she need not have worried. I wasn’t about to adopt Art Lapata, even though he was maybe a year or two younger, and I definitely wasn’t in search of a boyfriend. After all, Saturday was only two days away, and Jumbo Jim had first dibs on my heart.
“Who wrote the revised script, then?” I asked. I was careful not to talk with fried potatoes or pork chop in my mouth.
“I did. What do you think? Honestly.”
“Honestly?”
Art nodded.
“I like Green Acres better.”
“I don’t blame you. My Mother the Car had a better premise.”
"Why don’t you just tell the real story of the PennDutch murders?”
Art sighed. “Truth is, we couldn’t get all the necessary releases. The congressman who was involved threatened to sue—”
“You mean ex-congressman, by now.”
“Yeah, anyway, you get the drift.”
Then something occurred to me. “Look, Art, I know you put a lot of work into the new script, but it isn’t too late to change it, is it?”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Well, you could tell a more realistic story. Instead of a mad Amishman and his out-of-touch mother, why don’t you do a story about an Amishwoman whose son marries a girl she doesn’t like, and all the problems that stem from that?” I glanced furtively at Freni. Her broad back was turned in my direction, which undoubtedly meant she had tuned me out. Her hearing would kick in only at the sound of her beloved Arthur’s voice.
Art’s eyes seemed to bore right through me. At first I thought I’d said something dreadfully wrong. Perhaps he had married a girl his mother didn’t approve of. Oh, Lord, I thought, when will I ever learn to keep my big mouth shut?
Then Art pounded the table so hard that even Shnookums, safe within Susannah’s bra, felt the tremor. I assume that Darla’s mutt was similarly affected, because both dogs yipped. “That’s it!” shouted Arthur. “That’s a wonderful idea!” Then, conscious that everyone was staring at us, he lowered his voice considerably. “You will, of course, help me with the script? I mean, as a technical adviser.”
Needless to say, I was immensely flattered. But something else was nagging at my mind, and with enough persistence to give me the needed dose of perspective. “I’d love to help out,” I said honestly, “but I don’t have a lot of time right now.”
Art smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry about having to memorize all your dialogue. I prefer my actors to ad-lib. Up until this fiasco, it’s always been my trademark.”
“I’m not worried about that. What I’m worried about is finding Don Manley’s killer. That’s what I need the time for.”
He looked surprised. “Why you? Why can’t the police handle it?”
I said a quick prayer that God would guard my tongue. “Because our police department here in Hernia is not exactly on the ball,” I said with relative charity. “And because at the moment I am their number one suspect.”
Art blinked a couple of times, but didn’t faint or anything. “I see. Well, I meant what I said, Miss Yoder—”
“You may call me Magdalena.”
“Magdalena, then. I still want you to help me out on the script. As much as you can.”
“Thanks,” I said softly. Then I turned and pretended to look at a quilt hanging on the dining room wall. Nobody, but nobody, gets to see me cry.
Chapter Ten
Grandma Yoder’s Secret Corn Chowder
Makes 8 servings
1 pound bacon
1 large onion, chopped
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 pint half-and-half
2 cans creamed corn
Salt and pepper to taste
Start by cooking up the bacon. Grandma fried her bacon in a cast iron skillet, as does Freni, but when it’s my turn to cook, I zap it in a microwave. Crumble the cooked bacon and set it aside, saving two or three tablespoons of the grease.
In a large pot, saute the onion in the bacon grease until it softens and begins to brown. Stir in the cream of chicken soup and the half-and-half. Dump in the creamed corn and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve
with the crumbled bacon sprinkled on top. This soup tastes even better when made the day before and allowed to sit in the refrigerator overnight. Just remember to heat it up very slowly the next day so it doesn’t scorch, as it is rather thick.
Chapter Eleven
Art and I stayed up until the wee hours rewriting the script, but by the time we knocked off work, we had enough pages to resume shooting the next day. While it certainly wasn’t Academy Award-winning material, it was pretty darn good if I say so myself.
Since none of that morning’s scenes involved me, I decided to follow up on some people who seemed, at least to me, to have a motive for doing Don in. The first person I picked, only because she lived on my way into town, was Norah Hall.
The Halls live in one of those split-level ranch houses that combine pastel-colored aluminum siding and fake brick on the exterior. Incongruously, there are a couple of fiberglass pillars stuck here and there—a sort of Tara designed by Picasso. Their home is fairly new, and the maple trees planted in the front yard are hardly more than bushes. Their neighbors on both sides and across the road live in houses that are variations on the same theme. In Hernia, at least, homes like these scream out that their owners have bought into the upper-middle-class cliche. Heavy debts, multiple marriages, a penchant for electronic gadgets, status cars, and an obsession with health and exercise are all common denominators. And, of course, large eat-in kitchens with islands set adrift here and there. It is a dictum among these folks that there are few things in life more important than the exact shade of avocado for one’s refrigerator, unless it’s the size of one’s CD collection. Life for these people, or so I imagine, is one long nightmare. Living in abject fear of a power failure has got to take its toll.
There was one late-model car in the Halls’ driveway and naturally, given that I too think in cliches, I just assumed it was Norah’s. Ed Hall worked at a bank in Bedford, and as far as I knew, it was not a banking holiday. I made my way somewhat timorously up the impeccably clean walk, which was lined with precisely edged grass of a disgustingly uniform length. It wasn’t until I was right at the front door that I noticed the wooden painted goose with the bow around its neck half-hidden in the shrubbery. I rang the doorbell, hoping that someone would answer it before I puked.
