by Tamar Myers
‘Yes, me,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly it, isn’t it? Someone is targeting me!’
‘Wait a minute,’ Agnes said, sounding mildly irritated. ‘Why does everything have to be about you? Where was your old jalopy when you sat on the snake? You never did tell us? And I want to hear what the third act of vandalism is. So far, all I know about is the broken traces on the goat wagon, and the sewage released into the street. I was never any good at maths, but I’ll clean your inn for a month, if those two acts of mischief add up to more than three minus one.’
For some inexplicable reason Toy found her pitiful attempt at humour worthy of a chuckle. ‘Agnes, the missing piece to your puzzle occurred last evening. Just after that frog-strangler of rain we had last evening, someone reported seeing two skeletons washed up on the bridge. We might have had to shut the bridge down for an investigation while we sorted out their origin had not Magdalena’s husband, Gabe, immediately recognized what they were.’
‘Halloween skeletons,’ I added. ‘Made out of resin.’
Agnes shivered dramatically. ‘Those things give me the creeps. I backed into one at Walmart last year. I thought someone was tapping me on the shoulder, and then I nearly jumped out of my penny loafers.’
Toy sighed as he put his handsome head in his hands. ‘I wish we could stick to the point. We could accomplish so much more, so much more quickly that way. Instead the two of you dart this way and that in a conversation – I swear, y’all remind me exactly like my mother and sister.’
‘Oh, really?’ I said archly. ‘Which of us would be your mother, pray tell? We’re both the same age, you know.’
‘That’s right.’ Agnes sniffed. ‘Our mothers were best friends. We were bathed together in the same tub as infants, and we shared the same playpen until Magdalena started hogging all the toys.’
‘It was my playpen, dear, and they were my toys!’
Toy threw his hands in the air. ‘Stop! Listen to yourselves. You sound like you should both still be in that playpen. And how old are the two of you, anyway? Sixty?’
‘Why, I never!’ Agnes and I shrieked in one voice.
Toy smiled slyly. ‘Apologies to you both. I know that you are a decade younger than sixty, but it shut y’all up, didn’t it?’
‘We’re actually fifty-four,’ Agnes said.
‘Maybe she is,’ I said. ‘But since you said that you know that I’m a decade younger than sixty, that’s the age that I’m choosing. I’m only fifty.’
Toy grinned. ‘OK, now moving on. We all know who at least some of the snake owners are in this town, and they were dead set against our so-called heathen festival. I’ll be heading right over to pay Reverend Splitfrock a visit.’
I popped to my feet so fast that I left my good sense behind. ‘I’m going too!’
‘Please, Magdalena,’ Toy said, ‘you’re not a police officer. If I feel the need for back up, I’ll take Officer Cakewalker with me.’
‘Oh, I have no doubt that she is excellent at her job, but she doesn’t know these fanatics like I do.’
‘Magdalena speaks from a lifetime of experience,’ Agnes said drily.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ I said.
‘Just that your congregation, Beechy Grove Mennonite Church, has rubbed shoulders with those fanatics since before you were born. Maybe sometimes literally. That was inevitable, given that their old location was adjacent to your building. My comment wasn’t meant to be offensive.’
‘No, of course not, dear. You see,’ I said, practically wagging a long, thin finger in our poor chief’s face, ‘even Agnes agrees that I understand the snake-handlers of the church with sixty-six words in its name.’
‘Maybe you could be an observer,’ Toy said. ‘But that’s it. You’d have to promise to keep your … well, just don’t say a word.’
‘But first, what was it that you wanted me to promise?’
‘To keep your big mouth shut,’ Agnes said.
I glared at Agnes lovingly. Yes, such a thing is possible; it just takes a little practice, and a lifelong friend who can irritate you to no end from time to time.
‘Well, I did stop myself from saying it,’ Toy said. ‘OK, we’re off then.’
‘No,’ Agnes said. ‘You can’t just leave me. Whoever put the snake in Magdalena’s car while she was out of it was most likely watching her return to sit on it. Then they would have followed her back here, and watch you pull up, siren wailing, and lights flashing. How safe does that make me when you drive away? Huh? On a scale of one to ten?’
My poor buddy was genuinely terrified. I was reminded of the time when we were ten and Jimmy Wenger talked us into climbing with him into the belfry of an abandoned church building on Schantz Road. He said he wanted to see if there really were a few bats up there. He made us go first because we were girls, and Jimmy wanted to be polite. Well, there weren’t just a few bats in that old belfry; there were close to a hundred.
‘Agnes is right,’ I said. ‘She has to come with us. Besides, she might even know more about how to handle the snake-handlers than I do. You see, Agnes used to date one of Reverend Splitfrock’s misguided flock.’
‘I did?’ Agnes said.
‘Tut, tut, Agnes,’ I said, ‘how can you have forgotten Gilroy Snipps? The two of you used to be absolutely inseparable.’
‘Oh, yes, Gil,’ Agnes said, and pressed her hands over her heart. ‘He was my first love. But when one has had so many loves, as have I, one tends to forget a few.’
For the record, Agnes and Gilroy were inseparable in Kindergarten. The fact that they refused to stop holding hands was a bone of contention for both me, and our teacher, Miss Kurtz. I will admit to the fact that, technically, what I referred to as ‘dating’ was stretching the truth, but it was for a good cause, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like I was lying to benefit myself. Also for the record, Agnes’s real dating history can be counted on a single finger, and I mean that kindly. I needed her to put a cork in it, so to speak, before she blew her chance to tag along with us.
Toy might have been born yesterday, relatively speaking, but his mama didn’t raise no fool – to borrow a phrase from his lexicon. He appeared amused by our shenanigans and ushered us out the door with a chuckle.
‘Just be careful where y’all step, ladies,’ he said. ‘Snakes are hard to kill, and all I did was toss that sucker out in the yard. I reckon it’s had time to thaw out by now, and slither around to this side of the house.’
Agnes and I both screeched. Silly me. I bolted for Toy’s police cruiser and hopped up on the bonnet. Meanwhile Agnes, who weighs twice as much as I do, attempted to jump into Toy’s muscular arms. Poor Agnes was unable to achieve lift-off, but instead managed to bowl him over and pin him to the walk. In the process every molecule of oxygen seemed to have been squeezed from Toy’s lungs and his face turned blue, while Agnes’s face turned chalky white.
I am no hero, mind you. All I can say is that I love Agnes, and I care deeply about Toy. They both needed assistance, so I leaped off the car bonnet without a second’s thought. One heel of my clodhoppers struck driveway asphalt, while the other had a somewhat softer landing, accompanied by a soft crunching sound. At the same time, something smooth and scaly whipped around my ankles. I didn’t have to lift my heavy denim skirt to know what it was upon which I had landed.
‘Timber!’ I rasped, as I pitched face forward into the lush grass of Agnes’s seldom mown lawn that bordered her drive.
NINETEEN
‘It was no accident that I didn’t break any bones,’ I said. ‘It’s all because I drink two glasses of milk every day. Cow’s milk.’
‘You should try almond milk instead,’ Toy said. ‘It’s healthier.’
‘Pshaw! If God wanted us to drink something called almond milk, he would have given almonds little udders.’
Agnes giggled. ‘You’re being udderly ridiculous.’
‘At any rate,’ Tory said, ‘I will admit that it is plum amazing that a woman your age �
�� uh, I mean any person of any age, could fall flat on their face and not even break their nose.’
‘Especially a beak like yours,’ Agnes said. ‘If you made a divot in my lawn, you will replace it.’
‘Ha, ha,’ I said. Of course Agnes was only joking, but her japes embarrassed me in front of Toy.
‘So how did the snake fare?’ I asked.
‘Our hero Magdalena dispatched it with one step,’ Toy said.
‘Just like you told her three times before on the way over here,’ Agnes said. ‘Maybe Magdalena does need to see a doctor after all.’
‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Because that little white house with the dirty vinyl siding, and the broken screen door, that’s Reverend Splitfrock’s.’
‘Hmm,’ Toy said. ‘I knew he lived around here, but I didn’t know that he was that hard up. His flock must not pay him very much.’
‘They don’t pay him,’ I said. ‘The church is too small to give him a salary. Instead they pass the offering plate around; God gets ten percent of that, and the rest is his.’
‘Then how does he earn a living wage?’
‘He cleans toilets and mops floors. He’s a janitor over at Autumn Days Retirement Home in Bedford. I’m not saying that’s a living wage, but it’s considerably more than his congregation pays him.’
Toy parked the car in the shade of a silver maple and we trooped up the walk to the reverend’s front door. Toy took the lead, I lumbered along in second place, and dear, bulky Agnes bounced along behind us on feet as tiny as a newborn goat’s hooves.
If the president of the United States ever awards a medal to the most pessimistic citizen in this country, then surely he would have to pin it to my scrawny chest. But where to pin it – now that would indeed be a challenge. At any rate, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised when no one answered Reverend Splitfrock’s door; I was merely annoyed. I was, however, pleasantly surprised when a woman identifying herself as Viola Taylor came scurrying over from one of the houses next door to inform us that Reverend Splitfrock was out of town and that he would not return for three days. If she were to be believed, the congregation had left en masse two days ago.
They had travelled south to Tennessee, in a caravan, to participate in a large, inter-church baptism of likeminded believers. While they were in the south, they planned to collect more snakes before they went dormant for the winter.
‘Well, there goes that theory,’ Toy muttered on our way back to the car. ‘I should have known that it was too tidy a theory.’
‘I was almost positive that I saw some of the church members in the crowd,’ Agnes said. ‘They’re the unhappiest-looking bunch of Christians that you can imagine.’
‘Dodging fangs will do that,’ is what I was going to say, but I got a call from Gabe, so I trailed behind a few steps.
‘Husband dearest, what’s up?’
‘What’s up, babe, is that we’re all worried sick about you?’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Well, your son and I, for starters.’
‘For starters? Someone else misses me as well?’
‘Ma.’
‘Right.’
‘And your sister. Susannah and Cousin Miriam just got back. They’ve been riding around looking for you.’
‘Well then, why didn’t they just call me? I’ve been right here the entire time.’
‘Where’s that, hon?’
‘What did you say?’ I asked needlessly.
‘I asked—’
‘I’ll have to call you back, dear. But don’t worry, I’m fine.’
Once back in the car with the others, I told them what Cheryl had seen the night before. There may have been a few occasions in my life when I’ve embellished stories to make them sound more interesting, but this one needed no help from me. A man and a woman in magenta jumpsuits, at dusk, wearing cartoon duck masks – why, even my fertile imagination couldn’t make that stuff up!
‘Holy guacamole!’ Toy said. ‘Magdalena, now that one takes the cake.’
‘You’ve got to hand it to our Mags,’ Agnes said, beaming. ‘In our high school’s Speech and Creative Writing class, Magdalena made the highest grades. In fact, she was the teacher’s pet.’
‘Well, somebody had to be,’ I said. ‘But the duck masks and magenta jumpsuits – that’s straight from Cheryl’s lips. Although, she also said that the suits may have been black. How does one confuse magenta and black?’
‘Perhaps they were a very dark magenta,’ Toy said. ‘I’ve seen cars that colour, and you did say that it was dusk. Besides, Cheryl Rosen has always struck me as being a level-headed businesswoman.’
‘Ex-cu-u-suh me,’ Agnes said. ‘Are you forgetting that she used to be a psychiatrist? They’re nuttier than a PayDay bar.’
‘I don’t mean to be rude, Agnes,’ Toy said, ‘but have you ever seen a psychiatrist? I mean as a patient.’
‘No,’ Agnes said, ‘but I have seen them portrayed on television. They’re all very controlling and have lots of torrid extra-marital affairs.’
‘How very interesting,’ Toy said. ‘My mother must be the exception to the rule.’
Agnes gasped. ‘I am so sorry. I had no idea. I am sure that your mother is a wonderful woman. Yes, she must be the exception to the rule, or maybe the TV writers don’t know a thing about what they’re writing, or maybe I’m just babbling too much—’
‘Which you are,’ I said kindly.
We rode in silence until we got back to Agnes’s house. Agnes and I had both been sitting in the rear of the squad car, like prisoners, behind the bulletproof partition. However, a state-of-the-art sound system between the two compartments allowed us to communicate easily. Toy had no compunctions about either of us riding ‘shotgun’ as he called it – that is to say, sitting up front. Unfortunately, Agnes and I could not agree on who the lucky woman would be. Therefore, we both lost out.
‘Here we are,’ Toy said cheerfully as we pulled into Agnes’s drive. ‘Agnes, while I run Magdalena back to her car, why don’t you run in and pack a few things in a small bag. I’d feel better if you bunked with me for a day or two.’
I gasped in dismay. ‘You needn’t be worried about her being alone,’ I said. ‘Her two nude uncles can protect her.’
Agnes shot me a look that could have frozen over a pot of hot fudge. ‘Ha! Protect me, how? Uncle Fred is eighty-one, and Uncle Ned is eighty-three. Anyway, as you well know, Magdalena, the young man who usually minds them when I work, took them back to his family’s farm for the weekend.’ She smiled at Toy. ‘Those dear, sweet men can no longer handle all the stress there is to be felt in Hernia these days.’
‘Toy,’ I said, ‘how many times have Amish called to complain about the sight of naked men walking down the streets of our village?’
Toy ignored me. ‘So, Agnes, how about coming over to stay for a couple of days? That is, if you don’t mind.’
Agnes practically chortled her answer. ‘Why should I mind?’
‘Well, you know how tongues can wag in this village,’ Toy said.
‘Wiggle woggle waggle, and how our village tongues will wag!’ I said naughtily, for I could not believe my friend’s astonishingly good fortune. ‘Toy, doesn’t Periscope Pam live directly behind you?’
The poor man couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Yes, she does. But after the second time that I caught her rising from behind the bushes, with a pair of binoculars pressed to her eyes, she has pretty much stopped spying on me. That is – I think that she has. Or it could be that now I just tune out Pam Olsen rising out of a sea of green, like a submarine periscope.’
‘Eee,’ Agnes squealed. ‘What fun these sleepovers are going to be! Do you like old movies? Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn? Or Doris Day and Rock Hudson? I adore Doris Day.’
‘So do I,’ Toy said, still maddeningly cheerful. ‘What’s your favourite movie of hers?’
‘Pillow Talk,’ Agnes said, her voice suddenly husky. ‘Yours?’
‘Lover Come Back,�
�� Toy said.
‘Enough of this nonsense!’ I cried. ‘It’s starting to sound like Sodom and Gomorrah in here.’
‘Well in that case I’ll hop out and get my overnight bag.’ Agnes made a point of looking me directly in the eye. ‘Or, just to be on the safe side, Toy, should I plan to stay longer?’
Then Toy had the temerity to look back at me through the bullet-proof glass and grin. ‘Maybe pack a small suitcase. Also, Agnes, do you have any snacks that you could bring? Like maybe popcorn?’
‘Oodles,’ she said to him. ‘Toodles,’ she said to me, and then she did hop out, and off she went to pack for her life as Periscope Pam’s newest victim.
‘So that’s what it’s come down to,’ I said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Chief Toy said.
‘Nothing,’ I said, although I really meant ‘something, and you should figure it out on your own, so that I won’t have to embarrass myself’. But he was clueless, so we rode to Cheryl’s house in silence. He did, however, invite me to sit up front. I accepted the invitation of course – I’m not a complete idiot – but if Toy thought it was going to compensate for a sleepover with popcorn, he had another think coming. As for watching a movie titled Lover Come Back? I don’t think that I could bend my morals that far, even for a man like Chief Toy.
Anyway, how could I be so stupid, and so sinful, as to be envious of Agnes? So what if she got to be the guest of our young, handsome, and charismatic Chief of Police? Here was a man who watched what he ate and bothered to stay in shape. Never mind that Agnes was old enough to be his mother, and that she too had a reputation to protect. Did either of them even ask if she could come home with me? I was a professional innkeeper and staying with me would have been beyond reproach.
Also, since I was the one most in danger, wouldn’t it have made sense if both Toy and Agnes came back to the inn with me? Of course space was an issue, what with Cousin Miriam having been sprung on me at the last moment, but Alison’s room was free now, and so was that of the poor deceased couple, Gerald and Tanya Morris, whose mutilated bodies had been discovered in a dumpster behind Yoder’s Corner Market earlier in the week.
