by Tamar Myers
To make a long, sweet story slightly shorter, I had a head for business, and was soon raking money in fist over tightly clenched fist. However, I say that tongue in cheek. I give God ten percent of everything I make, and twenty percent or so after that back to the community. With less than two thousand residents, the village of Hernia could not afford a police department, so I pay for a police officer’s salary, as well as that of the mayor and the animal-control officer. Lest I get too much credit for my charity, I must hasten to point out that I am both mayor and dog-catcher.
Of course, I am much more than just a flat-chested, wealthy woman, long of limb and somewhat hard on the eyes. I am a conservative Mennonite woman who chooses to wear her long, mousy brown tresses in braids that wrap around her head and are held in place by so many hairpins that I set off metal detectors wherever I go. Atop my metal mountain I carefully perch a freshly washed white organza prayer cap, although I hold it in place with yet another metal pin. This is because the New Testament instructs everyone to pray at all times, and that women should pray with their heads covered. I wear dresses that cover my knees (as well as my privates, of course) with elbow-length sleeves. I do not believe in wearing fancy-schmancy jewelry.
Now, it has been said that I am a stubborn, opinionated woman – even bossy at times. Rubbish! We Mennonites are a soft-spoken, gentle people, renowned for our humility. I, for one, am quite proud of my humility. But anyway, what is so wrong about a woman having an opinion? After all, we women are intuitive folk. Is it not true that a hunch from a woman is equal to two facts from a man?
One final, and confidential, bit of information that I will share about myself is that I suffer from a chronic and heartbreaking disease known by the acronym of STAB. The initials stand for sarcastic, tart, alliterative blather. I used to think that Lucifer was the reason I couldn’t control all the alliterative words that flowed so effortlessly from my tongue. Believe me, I have prayed diligently about this matter. I have even worked with a speech therapist. The matter remains out of my control. I was on the verge of a deep depression until I consented to one session with a therapist, a very pleasant woman named Dr Luci Feragamo – a woman not of my faith. In that one session Dr Feragamo was able to convince me that alliteration is pleasant to the ear. She went on to say that only copy-editors and others like them – people who probably dance and stay away from fatty foods – find alliteration annoying. ‘Just ignore them,’ she said, and so I have.
Well, enough about me. Now I suppose I should properly introduce the corpse, that despicable purveyor of pulp fiction, Ramat Sreym. Her first name was pronounced Ram-it, to rhyme with a certain cuss word, and her last name was pronounced S-raym. She claimed to have been born in the nation-state of Sreymistan, but I can find no such place on the map, and Google is boggled as well. However, her accent was Midwest American – possibly one of the square states.
I will never speak ill of the dead unless, of course, it is necessary to do so in order to make a point or prove a case. I am afraid that I shall have to do both of those shortly, so here goes. Ramat was first and foremost a celebrity. My dear friend, and self-described literary critic, Doc Shafor, once quipped that Ramat Sreym might be able to write her name on the condition that she was allowed to plagiarize it. She was the sort of author who became famous overnight because her publisher bought space for her on the end caps of all the right bookstores. Again, this rather bitter sentiment came from Doc, who was a ‘wannabe’ writer and jumped to conclusions faster than a sports commentator. Personally, the only books that I read other than the Bible are autobiographies. As those are written by the subjects themselves, it stands to reason that, like the Good Book, every word in them is true.
But back to poor, misguided Ramat. By the time that I first met her, she had bought into the worst that American celebrity culture had to offer – hook, line and sinker. As a consequence (by her own admission), that meant fat-sucking, fat infusion, silicone implants, liposuction, toe removal, rib removal, dermabrasion and acid peels. The end result was a woman that even she couldn’t recognize.
She had managed to become ageless, with perfect features and skin, yet at the same time curiously unattractive. For all I knew, Ramat was closer to being a century old than she was to being the fertile twenty-something she appeared to be from a distance. Let it be known that I have great reverence for the elderly, despite the fact that I have been scolded by many a crone (with just cause, no doubt). The cantankerous and hard-to-please are our national treasures and we must treat them that way: we must turn them over to the government for their safekeeping.
Still, a body has a right to complain – and vociferously – when an outsider like Ramat Sreym falls face down into my prize-winning apple pie, causing not only the death of said pie, but the premature end of Hernia’s 110th Annual Festival of Pies.
TWO
‘The clue was “it was a dark and stormy night,”’ I said upon opening the door of the PennDutch Inn. ‘The answer was “cliché.”’
Our new Chief of Police scratched the back of his head with manicured fingers and attempted to wrinkle his unlined brow. He was our only police officer now that we’d been forced to downsize. Fresh out of the academy, and on the job for just two months, he was younger than my sturdy Christian underwear, but he was a very polite lad, which is all that really mattered to me. Honestly, it didn’t bother me one whit that his given name was Toy Graham. Toy!
‘Miss Yoder,’ he said, clearly unable to make eye contact with someone as ancient as myself, ‘would it be all right if I come in?’
I don’t mind telling you that my cheeks burned with embarrassment. A Southern woman would have already fed him dinner, maybe even burped him in the time it had taken me to answer the door. In my defence, Toy Graham had not called ahead, and I was determined to get the answer to number fifteen across before I set down my crossword puzzle.
‘By all means, come in,’ I said, and with a grand sweeping motion showed him into my stuffy sitting room and bade him to sit on my notoriously uncomfortable furniture. ‘Have a seat. There is no point in being picky because they are equally torturous on one’s backside. By the way, would you care for a snack?’
‘No, thank you, ma’am.’
‘Are you sure? There are pies galore in the kitchen. As usual, Freni forgot that the contest rules allow only one pie from each category, and she baked multiples of everything, determined as she was to finally win this year. Before the contest even began, she sent Mose back here with the extras so that I could freeze them for her. Freni is Amish, you know, and they aren’t permitted the use of electricity.’
‘Ma’am, I realize that it was rude of me not to call first—’
‘Indeed, it was.’
‘Please accept my apology, ma’am.’
Just looking at Toy Graham is enough to fill my head with foolish thoughts. If I get too close to him, I have to concentrate on Mama’s liver and prune soufflé to keep myself from self-combusting.
‘Of course, dear,’ I said, my eyes on his shoes. ‘You have my partial attention.’ Since folks never really listen to each other, it never mattered what I said.
‘I asked if we could talk about Miss – uh – Miss—’
‘OK, Chief, here’s the deal. Ramat Sreym is an unusual name, a bit tricky for anyone to pronounce except for a native Sreymistani, so I suggest that henceforth we refer to her as either the “deceased,” or simply “Ramat.”’
He laughed with nervous relief. ‘Yes ma’am. Anyway, she can’t object now.’
‘Oh, don’t be so sure of that. That straight chair you’re sitting on used to belong to my Granny Yoder. She’s been dead for almost forty years and she still objects to just about everything that I do.’
The chief’s boyish features lost a summer’s worth of tan. ‘What do you mean by “still” objects?’
‘She’s standing beside you right now looking like she’s sucking on a lemon. I think she wants you to move.’
The p
oor lad shot up like a slice of toast. ‘Ma’am, are you teasing me?’
‘Well, I could say that I was toying with you, but you still haven’t given me permission to use your given name.’
He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘By all means, please, call me Toy.’
‘Thank you, Toy. But sit over there – on that equally uncomfortable loveseat. I wasn’t kidding about Granny Yoder. I know that a good Christian is not supposed to believe in ghosts – I prefer to call them Apparition Americans – but I can’t help what I see. Right now I see that Granny Yoder has reclaimed her chair and that the five, three-inch hairs on the mole to the left of her nose are jiggling as she snorts in righteous indignation.’
While Granny snorted, Toy shivered. ‘Oh, man,’ he said, ‘this is scary, ma’am – I mean, Miss Yoder – but at the same time, it’s kind of cool. You should have a TV crew come in here and film a special. You know, where a priest tries to exorcise her. I saw a 3D movie about that. The special effects were awesome.’
Granny Yoder’s ghost was not amused. ‘Granny eschewed exercise of any kind,’ I said, ‘especially if it involved machinery. She claimed that treadmills were invented by the Devil – and that’s with a capital D. As for 3D films, she believed them to be an unholy trinity. Now be a dear, and let us return to the more recently departed.’
‘Yes, of course. As you know, the Coroner’s Office believes that Ramat may have been poisoned—’
‘Excuse me? I did not know this. All I know was that she was a guest judge at the festival last week and had been judging pies – my apple pie in particular – when she pitched face forward onto it and crushed it, along with my chances of winning a blue ribbon, I might add.’
Toy cocked his handsome head and scribbled furiously on an actual paper pad with the stub of a genuine wooden pencil. Just for that, I would allow the boy some latitude, no matter what he was writing. As if those weren’t enough points in his favour, he appeared to be writing in cursive.
‘Oh, yes, just between you and me’ – he glanced over at Granny’s chair – ‘uh, and her, I’d say it’s for sure that the method of murder was poison in a pie. I don’t mind sharing this with you, Miss Yoder, because you are, after all, our mayor.’
‘Well, clearly she wasn’t stabbed or bludgeoned, given that she was standing right there surrounded by everyone and his shadow, and no one noticed a thing.’
‘Miss Yoder,’ Toy said, ‘sarcasm is like a barbershop quartet – a little of it goes a long way.’
‘In that case, please continue to share.’
‘Strychnine,’ he said.
‘What? I didn’t put strychnine in my pie. In fact, I didn’t even bake my own pie— Oops! Well, if I had baked it, I wouldn’t have put it in. And you know darn-tooting well that Cousin Freni didn’t do it. That dear woman is seventy-eight years old and as close to a living saint as the Amish will admit to having.’ Truth be told, the Amish will have naught to do with saints, and my elderly kinswoman can be as crabby as a seafood buffet.
‘Miss Yoder,’ Toy continued, ‘I don’t for a second suspect you of having anything to do with Ramat’s death. To the contrary; I am here because I want you to help me solve it.’
‘Moi?’ I said coyly, and batted my colorless eyelashes.
Toy crossed his legs, his right ankle resting on left knee. Goodness gracious me! The boy wonder from Charlotte wasn’t wearing any socks, but not only that, it appeared that he either waxed or shaved his legs. I kid you not; there are eggs in my refrigerator that are hairier than his calves. Imagine that: a police officer wearing a blue regulation uniform, supplied by our generous little community (i.e. me), but refusing to properly clad his feet. The lad either had gumption, suffered from a phobia or was too lazy to do his laundry. Time would tell.
‘Yes, you,’ he said. ‘I have heard many good things about your sleuthing skills.’
‘From whom?’
‘Never you mind. Suffice it to say that even the County Sheriff over in Bedford will vouch for you.’ Upon hearing that, Granny’s ghost fluttered her shrivelled lips in disapproval.
‘Will wonders never cease?’
He scribbled faster. ‘Magdalena,’ he said, ‘you said something about it being a dark and stormy night. Was that supposed to mean something, or were you just trying to be funny, as I hear is usual?’
‘I was referencing a crossword puzzle. You might have picked up on that had you been listening, but you are a man, and as every woman knows, the first five words in a conversation are wasted on a man.’
‘What? Should I take umbrage at that remark?’
‘Absolutely not, dear. In fact, you get extra points based on your vocabulary.’ I paused to gesticulate. ‘Stop that,’ I said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Not you, Toy. I’m talking to Granny’s ghost.’
‘Miss Yoder, if your grandmother’s ghost bothers you so much, why don’t you get rid of her? No kidding, it can be done.’
‘Nonsense! Granny’s ghost is part of the package deal that I offer my guests, just like her uncomfortable furniture. All of this furniture is in a late Victorian style called Eastlake, and it has never been reupholstered. That means that there are springs sticking up hither, thither and up one’s yon. I’ve been told that sitting on a patch of prickly pear cactus makes more sense than trying to relax anywhere in this parlour.’
Toy rubbed his chin. ‘Let’s see: a ghost, no place to get comfortable – why would anyone want to stay at your inn?’
‘But don’t you see?’ I cried. ‘There is genius behind this madness. People like getting abused, just as long as they can pay through the nose and view it as a cultural experience. Why else would anyone travel to France? And this is the same reason why very expensive restaurants serve you microscopic portions, and why megastars make you wait two hours before they begin their sold-out concerts.’
The poor boy rubbed his hands through his hair and moaned. ‘Gee, Miss Yoder, you sound so jaded.’
‘Experienced, dear. Please bear with me, because this discussion is germane to your investigation. Coincidentally, it was a dark and stormy night when Ramat checked into the PennDutch, but she had made her reservations well in advance. This was about a year ago. Anyway, she was also quite willing to pay four hundred dollars extra per day for ALPO.’
‘Isn’t Alpo a brand of dog food?’
‘In this case it stands for Amish Lifestyle Plan Option. By signing up for that brilliant idea of mine, she got to have the privilege of tidying up her room, setting and clearing the table at meals, washing the dishes, sweeping the porches and mucking out the cow barn. For a premium of just two hundred dollars my cousin Mose would help her try to milk Bessie, our most cooperative cow. However, we do ask all the guests to sign a disclaimer stating that they’ve been informed that Bessie has particularly sensitive teats and has kicked upon rare occasions.’
Who knew that the polite young police chief from Charlotte was given to fits of prolonged staring? ‘M-Miss Yoder,’ he finally stammered, ‘you’re really a piece of work. You do know that, don’t you?’
‘I shall take that as a compliment. Now, moving right along, not only did Ramat throw herself into her chores, and with a certain joie de vive, I might add, but she bought a genuine faux Amish get-up from my little gift shop in the lobby in which to perform these tasks.’
The stubby pencil hovered in midair above the tiny pad while Toy cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me, Miss Yoder, but how can something be both faux and genuine at the same time?’
I was impatient to get on with my fascinating tale, so I waved one of my shapely, yet humongous hands in a somewhat dismissive gesture. ‘These garments are genuine in that they are sewn by real Amish women and they adhere to the image that the undiscerning tourist usually carries in her mind. But, you see, the undiscerning tourist generally prefers something a little – uh – sexier than what an Amish woman would wear. And with a zipper, instead of hooks and eyes.’
&nb
sp; ‘The Amish can’t wear zippers?’
I shook my head. ‘Too modern.’
‘Wow! Go on, please.’
‘Now where was I?’ I knew exactly where I was: I was in my parlour engaged in an important conversation, and major conversations must be conducted as if they were musical symphonies. ‘The point of all this,’ I said, waving my hands like a conductor, ‘is that from a financial standpoint, Ramat Sreym was the perfect guest. Therefore, I didn’t mind answering a few questions from her now and then.’
Toy made some unattractive noises with his larynx.
‘Really, dear,’ I said, ‘must you? Young people today can be so vulgar.’
‘Sorry,’ Toy mumbled. ‘I will try to contain myself.’
‘Well, at first she’d ask only the occasional question. But you know me – or perhaps you don’t. That is, I was born with a genetic disorder – one that I inherited from both parents – which is sometimes referred to as Perilous garrulous. This disease forces me to talk. Trust me; this condition has been my undoing on many occasions. Blab, blab, blab, my, my but how I carry on. So before I knew it, Ramat had all the dirt on Hernia that she needed to write that filthy, bestselling piece of trash. Of course, I hadn’t the slightest idea that she was going to use the pearls that fell from my loose lips to sink my ship, or that of anyone else in this village. Like I said, I never read fiction. When that piece of trash shot to the top of the bestseller list, manipulated as it was by the publisher, our village’s chief financial officer – that’s my double first cousin once-removed, Sam Yoder – thought it might be a good idea to ask her to be a judge for our annual pie-eating contest. Of course, he didn’t expect her to stay; even a rude negative response from her could be turned into good publicity for the festival by Sam. Can you imagine how gobsmacked we were when her publicity agent said that it was a fabulous idea? No doubt she had a sequel in mind: Ramat and the Hicks of Hernia, Part II. Something like that.’
