Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth

by Tamar Myers

  “Melvin, dear,” I began, “there’s something important I should tell you.” “Dear,” in case it’s escaped your notice, is a form of address reserved exclusively for use by middle-aged women when they want to be condescending. Although usually this form of condescension is employed by sales clerks, we hoi polloi have rightful access to it as well. Of course, as we all know, at about age fifty-five we need to substitute the word “honey” for “dear” when we stoop to condescend. The principle remains the same, however.

  As a truly acculturated man under forty, Melvin responded much better to condescension than he ever had to confrontation. “Yes, Miss Yoder?”

  I told Melvin about Lydia’s conversation with me in the henhouse. By the time I was through, Melvin Stoltzfus looked like he was about ready to cry. He was clearly out of his league. “What do you think I should do, Miss Yoder?”

  “Pray more,” said Freni. I’m sure she meant it.

  “Have you considered calling in the big boys?” I hadn’t meant to be insulting. “What I mean is, can’t you just turn this over to the county? You know, call the Sheriff in on it.”

  Melvin shook his head, probably to hide the fact that he was blinking. Given the size of Melvin’s eyes, he wasn’t fooling anyone. “Jeff, I mean the Chief, put me in charge while he’s away. I’m supposed to handle everything that comes up within this jurisdiction. He’s counting on me, Miss Yoder. I’m supposed to follow normal procedure.”

  “Well, then, what is normal procedure in this case?”

  It wouldn’t have surprised me if Melvin had consulted a handbook, but he didn’t. “I am authorized to detain everyone who was on or had access to these premises, for the next twenty-four hours, or until the coroner’s report is returned. At which time I must—”

  “Freni!” My kinswoman and sometime cook was trying to sneak out the back door. What with supper just hours away, I couldn’t afford to let that happen.

  “I’m just going out to get some eggs,” said Freni haltingly. Most Amish women are terrible liars.

  I smiled. “No need to, dear. I just collected them all a half hour ago.”

  Freni’s face turned a nice, deep red, which actually went quite well with her blue gingham dress. “W-w-well,” she stammered, “t-this recipe requires a lot of eggs. I’m going to need some more. Maybe some have been laid since then.”

  Maliciously I opened the fridge door. “Do you need more than four dozen?”

  “I was only here for ten minutes last night,” said Freni. “All I did was bring a casserole. And this is the thanks I get? Being accused of murder?”

  “No one’s accused you of anything,” Melvin tried to explain, but Freni would have none of it.

  “Your grandmother and I are cousins,” she said. I’m sure she meant the term loosely. “But we’re more like sisters. And your grandfather and I are cousins on the Bontrager side. I’ve known you all your life, Melvin, long before that bull kicked you in the head, and you have the nerve to accuse me of murder?”

  “Freni!” This time it was Mose. I hadn’t seen him come in, so compelling was Freni’s performance.

  I let Mose try and calm Freni down while I attempted to do the same with Melvin. That comment about having been kicked in the head clearly seemed to have upset him. Perhaps there was truth to the rumor. Undoubtedly Melvin had heard it before.

  “Don’t pay any attention to what she said, Melvin. Freni Hostetler is as high-strung as a telephone pole on Mars. She speaks first and thinks later. But deep inside she’s a pussycat.”

  “Cats have claws, Miss Yoder. Anyway, what do you think I should do now?”

  “Detain all the guests,” I advised, “but let Freni go home for the night when she’s done here. It’s not like we don’t know where to find her. What’s she going to do, make a mad dash for the Maryland border in her buggy?”

  Much to my surprise, Melvin accepted my advice. He told everyone except Freni that no charges had been levied yet but that none of them was to leave the township of Hernia until the coroner’s report came in. I was surprised again when virtually no one complained about having to spend another night at the Inn. Perhaps it was because they were all paid up through the end of the week. At any rate, even the Congressman seemed to have calmed down a bit.

  To Freni, Melvin said not another word. The Hostetler farm, incidentally, lies just over the township boundary, a fact undoubtedly known to Melvin. I think Freni should have been grateful that he seemed to have dropped the matter, but of course she wasn’t. She didn’t even bother to put her supper makings back into the fridge before she left.

  “I will not be spoken to like that by Sarah Stoltzfus’s grandson, Magdalena. Your mama would turn over in her grave if she knew that little Melvin had accused me of murder.”

  “Leave Mama out of it, Freni!”

  “And don’t you use that tone of voice on me, Magdalena. I won’t stand here and take that.”

  “Then go home, Freni.”

  “Good. I will. I quit!”

  “Until next time, Freni.”

  Fortunately, at that point Mose managed to shuffle his wife out the door. Needless to say, I felt sorry for him. He was forever having to extricate his wife from unpleasant situations—situations caused by distinctively un-Amish behavior on her part. Freni needed either to see a therapist or to seriously consider becoming a Baptist. A pacifist, she was not.

  I looked at the mess Freni had left spread out on the table. Whatever it was she had planned for supper, it was beyond me. Something with pig’s knuckles and spiced apple rings, no doubt, but certainly not a menu that would garner even the majority approval of our guests.

  “What can I make for supper that everyone will like?” I asked myself. Several times. It is a well-known fact that talking to one’s self is proof of high intelligence.

  The very intelligent, of course, talk back to themselves. “Why bother to even try,” I heard myself eventually answer. “Just make them tomato soup and grilled peanut sandwiches. Given the circumstances, they should be happy to get anything.”

  And for the most part, they were.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Jeanette didn’t even come down to supper. I can’t say as I blamed her. When Mama and Papa died, I went about a week without eating. Anyway, I took a bowl of soup and a grilled peanut butter sandwich up to her when supper was over.

  “Thanks,” was all she said.

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d expected at least one heavy-duty criticism, maybe even a repeated accusation, but such was not the case. “Let me know if you need anything,” I offered. I meant it.

  “Thanks,” she said again.

  I went back downstairs feeling more than a little uneasy. This was not the same Jeanette who had flung accusations at me in the parlor just hours before. This woman was almost a stranger.

  Her subdued responses aside, there was something very different about the woman. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was exactly, but I thought it might even have something to do with the way she looked. The intense energy, albeit negative, that Jeanette usually projected, was curiously absent. This Jeanette looked about as perky as I must look when I wake up from a too long nap.

  Of course I didn’t dwell on Jeanette. She was a big girl, after all. And anyway I had problems of my own to contend with.

  “How dare you?” screamed Susannah when I got back to the kitchen.

  “How dare I what?”

  “Melvin just called, and he’s canceling our date tonight altogether.”

  “Somebody should be grateful.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Magdalena, this is all your fault. If you hadn’t gone and opened your big yap, I’d be in Breezewood right now, buying popcorn for the movie.”

  “Did you wash the quilt and Linda’s sheets like I asked?” With Susannah, you stand at least a fifty-fifty chance of deflecting her if you abruptly change the subject.

  “Yes, I washed them. And that’s another thing, I don’t see why
that had to be my job.”

  “You do want clean bedding for tonight, don’t you?”

  Susannah stomped her right foot and slapped the kitchen table so hard it must have jarred poor Shnookums. At any rate, he yelped. “Oh no, I’m not, Magdalena. I’m not sleeping up there where somebody just died.”

  “Then pick a spot on the floor in the parlor,” I told her. “You’re for sure not sleeping with me.”

  “Magdalena!”

  I reminded Susannah that Grandma Yoder had died in my bedroom, in fact in my very bed. That did the trick. Susannah had always been a little afraid of Grandma Yoder, although I can’t say that I blamed her. Grandma Yoder had been a gaunt, hollow-eyed, perpetually angry woman as far back as I can remember. She died when Susannah was only five, but my sister remembers seeing the old woman standing at the foot of her bed on at least two occasions after that. And, as I’ve already shared with you, I’ve seen her about myself a number of times. Apparently these were facts Susannah had forgotten.

  “Your room, where sweet young Linda expired, is in the new wing. Grandma was never in there,” I reminded her. “And besides which, since you’ll be by yourself, you can watch TV all night.”

  Susannah was cooperative after that.

  Even by the time I got done with the few supper dishes, without Susannah’s help of course, virtually everyone else had retired to their rooms. Or so I thought. I nearly let out a scream when I came back from checking the front door and found Joel Teitlebaum crouching on the floor behind the check-in desk.

  “What on earth are you doing?” I asked, when I finally had control of my vocal cords.

  Joel stood up sheepishly. He held up a fistful of postcards. “I was looking at these, trying to pick out a couple to buy, when they all kind of just slipped out of my hand.”

  I took a couple of deep breaths. “Well, you almost scared the life out of me. I thought everyone had gone to their rooms.”

  Joel tucked most of the postcards back on the rack. “I’m off to bed myself, soon as I pay for these. It’s been a long day, even if it is early.”

  “You were fond of Linda, weren’t you?” I wasn’t being nosy, just sympathetic in my own way.

  “Yeah, Linda was okay,” said Joel. That’s one thing I like about young people today. They’re seldom maudlin.

  “I’m sure you’ll miss her. I’ll bet you two were really close.”

  Joel cleared his throat before speaking. “Miss Yoder, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong guy. It wasn’t me and Linda who were close, it was Linda and Billy Dee.”

  “I see.” I should have seen earlier. How uncharacteristically stupid of me. After all, I had seen Billy Dee and Linda having a tete-a-tete over the quilting frame in the dining room, while Joel sat alone in the parlor munching sunflower seeds.

  “Good night, Miss Yoder,” said Joel. He seemed more embarrassed now than he had a minute ago, when I’d discovered him on his hands and knees.

  “Good night, Joel. And thanks for pitching in the other night with your famous broiled bananas. I hear they were the hit of the house. In fact, I was told they were the only thing that appealed to everybody.”

  Joel blushed. “Yeah, well, I got the recipe from a West African roommate. They’re very easy to make. I’m just glad everybody liked them. I felt sorry for Mrs. Ream. Nobody ate her vegetable curry except for we three vegetarians. You’d have thought her own husband would have given it a try.”

  “I heard it looked pretty bad,” I said in Billy Dee’s defense.

  “Yeah, well, that’s still no excuse for being rude.”

  I refrained from pointing out that Joel probably hadn’t touched Billy Dee’s venison stew, or the Congressman’s beans, which had been doctored up with bits of bacon. There is no point in trying to change someone else’s perspective, anyway. We all just see what we want to see. That goes double for the young. I decided to just ignore his comment.

  “Say, Joel,” I said, “you wouldn’t be interested in playing a game of cards, would you?”

  He looked at me in surprise.

  “Oh, not with face cards,” I assured him quickly. “We Mennonites don’t use those. I’m thinking of Rook. I could see if Susannah wants to play, and we could use the kitty as the fourth hand.”

  I was surprisingly un-tired, given the kind of day I’d had. I would have thought that having a second corpse show up in my inn would wear me to a frazzle, send me emotionally and physically escaping into the depths of dark, safe sleep. But not so. Maybe it was because I’d slept so late that morning, or maybe it was because I’m a psychological misfit, but I was still feeling as perky as all get out. Shamefully so. Maybe even high—not that I’m sure I know what that feels like.

  Apparently Joel did not share my vim and vigor; either that or he simply had no interest in playing games with someone old enough to be his mother. He said he was feeling unusually tired and thought he might even be coming down with something.

  We said good night again, and having nothing else to do, I went to my room, lay down on my bed, and began to read. I guess I should confess right now that I absolutely adore reading. I’m sure some people think that just because I live a simple lifestyle, I have a simple mind. If only they knew.

  When I was in the third grade my teacher called Mama in and told her the school had determined that I had an I.Q. of 146 and they were recommending that I be promoted to the fifth grade. Mama refused to even consider such a thing. Having me skip a grade would lead to prideful and arrogant thoughts on my part, Mama told the teacher. I was never to know I was smarter than anyone else in my class. And then, just to make sure she counteracted anything my teacher might be doing on the sly, Mama established her own program of teaching me all the fine points of modesty and humility.

  It wasn’t until Susannah was in high school, and she found out from her guidance counselor that she had an I.Q. of 142, that the light began to dawn. If Susannah was that smart, I reasoned, so was I. If not smarter. But by then I had lost confidence in myself and had long since put the idea of college behind me. Still, one day in an argument with Mama, the truth had come out. Just between you and me, Mama deserves a couple of extra turns in her grave for what she did.

  Anyway, like I said, I love to read. My books have taken me far beyond the limits of my natural world, and I don’t think I could survive my life here at the PennDutch Inn without them. Unfortunately, Hernia doesn’t have a library, even a tiny one. Old Doc Shafer does, though. When I was a child he used to bring books by the bushel basket for me to read. Mama didn’t mind at all, providing she got to sort through them first.

  Nowadays, even the library in Somerset offers slim pickings when it comes to books I haven’t read. Fortunately old Doc has a niece in Pittsburgh who visits him almost every other week, and she doesn’t seem to mind at all making trips to the Carnegie Library for me. Occasionally she even stops at the Mystery Lovers Bookshop in suburban Oakmont and picks up a good whodunnit or two.

  I had just started a book by Paul Theroux, my favorite travel writer, when the phone rang. I answered the phone on the seventh ring, but perhaps I should have waited longer. Even then I must have sounded crabby. “Miss Yoder?” asked a timid voice.

  “That depends on who wants to know.”

  “This is Melvin, Miss Yoder. Melvin Stoltzfus.”

  “Speak up, Melvin. I can barely hear you.”

  “Miss Yoder, I just got a call from the coroner, and there’s a couple of questions I’d like to ask.”

  “Ask away, Melvin.”

  “Did you know that Linda McMahon was pregnant?”

  “She never breathed a word to me about it,” I said quite honestly.

  “Well, she was. Just about to enter her second trimester, as a matter of fact. Which brings me to my second question. Would you have any idea who the father might be?”

  “Why, Melvin Stoltzfus, you should be ashamed!” I said with righteous indignation. “This is a Christian establishment, and I don’t allow any
hanky-panky. And anyway, you just said yourself that she was three months pregnant. If that’s the case, it surely didn’t happen here. For all I know, Billy Dee Grizzle is the father.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Melvin, dear, I was being flippant.”

  “I’ll have to question Mr. Grizzle about that in the morning,” said Melvin, quite seriously. “In the meantime, there’s something I think you should know.”

  “Go on, Melvin, I’m listening.”

  “Both Heather Brown and Linda McMahon were definitely poisoned.”

  “I said, go on, Melvin. I already suspected that.”

  “Both women were killed by the same type of poison, but the killer used two different poisons on Linda McMahon.”

  “Two poisons?”

  I thought I heard Melvin take a deep breath. “Yes, two, but only one of the poisons killed her.”

  “Come again?”

  “You see, Miss Yoder, the poison that killed the women was a very fast-acting type of digitalis. It causes respiratory failure within a matter of minutes. Respiratory failure is when—”

  “I know, Melvin. Go on.”

  “Well, Harrisburg plugged their computer into Washington’s and came up with the interesting fact that this particular form of digitalis is found only in one species of plant, and that plant is native only to Morocco.”

  “Morocco?”

  “The lower slopes of the Atlas Mountains to be precise. The Arabic name for the plant is gouza. It’s a very unusual plant in that it produces green flowers. It’s these flowers that are the most toxic part of the plant. Although they are more lethal if consumed fresh, when dried and put into tea they also remain deadly.”

  It sounded like Melvin was reading a pamphlet the C.I.A. had faxed him. Perhaps he was. “And what about the second poison, the one that didn’t kill her?”

  “Ah, that. That was just common old Aethusa cynafium."