As The World Churns Part 9

"That was supposed to be a serious rendition?"

"Yes."

"Oops. Of course I was listening with only one ear, seeing as how I was on the phone, and these windows seem to have exceptionally thick gla.s.s that distorts sound."

"Harrumph. I'll have you know that others have said-well, never you mind. And please, I've told you a million times to call me Magdalena."

"Magdalena, that was the hospital on the phone. Doc opened his eyes this morning. It was just for a second, but still, that's supposed to be an excellent sign. The nurse said that the next seventy-two hours are critical. But if Doc does wake up, there is a chance he could make a full recovery."

"Praise G.o.d and pa.s.s the mashed potatoes!"

"What was that?"

"Oh, just something Alison says when I ask her to recite grace. It was the first thing that popped into my mind."

"Yeah, well, I'm really glad about Doc too. So, have you come up with any leads so far?"

I told young Chris about the supposed clone and Rebecca's sighting of illegal aliens. He dismissed the former out of hand.

"Are there any Hispanics in Hernia? If so, no one's ever mentioned them."

"Alice Beckerman's father was born in Paraguay. But his parents were Amish emigrants from Pennsylvania. I don't think that counts. You see, Chris, folks in our community are still willing to do menial labor. When the Amish need to put up a barn, the entire community pitches in-sometimes even non-Amish get in-volved-and the barn is built in literally one day."

"That's incredible."

"You're darn tooting-oops, I didn't mean to swear. I sort of got carried away with pride-oops, that's an even bigger sin. Before these lips sink my shapely ship-oops! Spit it out, man-why are you asking about Hispanics?"

Young Chris smiled. "Miss Yoder, have you ever been in therapy?"

"I was shrunk once by a visiting shrink, but I'm not so sure it took. But again with the questions. You're not planning to convert to Judaism, are you? I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that-especially in your case, given that you're doomed to h.e.l.l anyway. Of course, that's not me talking, but the Bible."

"What?"

"Never mind. Get back to the Hispanics."

"It's just that several people have called in, reporting two brown-skinned men crossing their fields, or loitering about at the edge of their woods. No one has seen them close up, so they can't get any more specific than that."

Then a candle was lit in my feeble little brain. "They're Gertie Fuselburger's hired hands. She promised to look after them. Implied they weren't lacking for a place to stay. But I have a hunch they slept in my barn last night."

"And you're okay with this?"

"I most certainly am not! You can be sure Miss Fuselburger is going to pay extra for the privilege of bunking her help in the most exclusive accommodations this side of the Wyoming state line."

"Forgive me, Miss Yoder, but do you honestly consider sleeping on hay to be an exclusive experience?"

"They'll each get two burlap bags, which they can keep, and a large coffee can-the six-seater outhouse I have now is just for show. Plus, the ambiance of sleeping in a replica of an authentic Amish barn. What other inn that you know of offers such perks?"

He smiled again. "You've got me there. But I would think that allowing Miss Fuselburger's employees access to the cows all night could lead to some interesting problems."

Just because my police chief has a very attractive head does not mean it's empty. "Oh? What sort of problems?"

14.

"Well, for starters, they could poison the cows."

"You mean like with jimson weed?"

"Yeah, or anything. And it doesn't even have to be lethal- heck, it doesn't even have to be anything at all. What I'm saying is that if the other contestants find out about this-about letting those men sleep in the barn near their cows-they could demand the cows all be tested. That means that the compet.i.tion could be delayed."

"Over my dead body."

"Miss Yoder, please don't say that."

"Are you superst.i.tious?"

"Is the pope German?"

"Tell me, Miss Yoder, what have you managed to learn from your guests?"

"Well, the Pearlmutters danced the bedroom bossa nova six times last night; both Dorfman brothers tried to show up for breakfast wearing only wife-beater T-shirts and jam-jam bottoms; Gertie Fuselburger left her chompers unattended in the downstairs powder room; and as for that dear, sweet Candy Brown, I think she's lying about being Polish. Neither she, nor her husband, had ever heard of pierogies. Now why would someone lie about being Polish, I ask you? Where there is one lie, there are sure to be many-that's what Granny Yoder always used to say, although she seemed to have no trouble not telling me that my birth mother was really a gypsy girl from a traveling carnival. If you ask me, withholding information is just another way of lying. But when it comes to lies, the one that really takes the cake is the whopper the Dorfman brothers think we're stupid enough to swallow. Ha, a cloned cow indeed!"

"Excuse me, Miss Yoder, do you think the Dorfmans are serious about the cloned cow story?"

"They at least want us to believe that Harry was able to turn a plain cow into a show-quality specimen via some secret process. What's even worse is that they're hoping to create a media sensation by announcing their hoax at my-I mean, our-Holstein compet.i.tion."

"Hmm. That might not be all bad."

"Et tu, Brute?"

"You see, Miss Yoder, the kind of person who'd a.s.sault an old man like Doc is the same kind who tends to love media attention. It wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't Doc's handwriting on your barn stall, but the a.s.sailant's. At any rate, wouldn't Hernia benefit from the additional coverage? You know what they say: there is no such thing as bad press."

"I take it then that no one has ever publicly accused you of being Bigfoot and interbreeding with Melvin the Mantis?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Never mind. Look, I have an idea that may flush this creep out into the open before tomorrow and the official start of the compet.i.tion. If it works, I'm pulling the plug on the Dorfman entries."

The handsome young man leaned forward eagerly. "What's your plan?"

"What do cows say?"

"Moo?"

"Bingo."

Twenty thousand dollars is a lot of moola, even for moi. Well, not really. Over the years since I inherited the PennDutch Inn, I have learned to pinch a penny until it screams for mercy. But my point is that, for most folks, twenty big ones was not chump change. The police station has a copy machine, paid for by yours truly, so I had no compunctions about using it to print up flyers offering a reward for any information leading to the arrest of Doc's a.s.sailant.

I had just taped a flyer to a telephone pole in the historic part of town, when the driver of a pa.s.sing vehicle slammed on the brakes and jumped out. As my eyes refocused, my heart sank. One of the Dorfman brothers was striding toward me, now completely sans shirt, while his shorts hung precariously low. His hairy belly swayed from side to side with each step. I stood rooted to the sidewalk, too mortified to move. It was like watching the approach of a wooly mammoth-although of course such a creature never existed, and even if it had, it would have perished at the hands of the first Americans, who paradoxically arrived on this continent at least four thousand years before the world was even created.

"Miss Yoder, I need a word."

"Extraneously."

"Is that Aye-mish?"

"Nay, 'tis not."

"Miss Yoder, I don't speak Aye-mish. Just regular ol' English."

"Alas and alack, we lack an interpreter. But speak loudly, and then maybe I'll understand. What is it that you want, Mr. Dorfman?"

"Harry."

"Indeed, you are. And since you brought up the subject, going shirtless is just not done in Hernia. Besides, aren't you freezing to death?"

"Ma'am, it's seventy degrees. Back in North Dakota we don't get this kind of weather in April."

"Harrumph."

"Is that Aye-mish too?"

"Nicht, nein, nyet. Please, hairy Harry, cut to the chase. But just don't run; the sight of your unsightly abdomen swaying at high speed may cause me to poke out my mind's eye."

"Uh . . ."

"The word you wanted with me. What seems to be the problem? It isn't about that rust brown stain on the carpet, is it? Because it's ketchup, not blood. The man who died in your room was strangled to death."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oops. I must have lapsed into Amish again. A lot of their words sound like English, but have different meanings." Okay, so that was an out-and-out fib. But the truth might have upset him so much that he'd have a heart attack.

He nodded and pulled a crumpled flyer from a pocket of his khaki shorts. "I seen this outside the feed store. Is this for real?"

"Yes."

"Hot diggity dog! I'm getting me a new water tank for my herd with this here reward money."

My heart began to pound. "You know something about Doc's a.s.sailant?"

"Yes sirree, I reckon I do. And what are the chances I'd find you just by driving around this pretty little city, looking up and down the streets like I did?"

"Spit it out, man!"

"Well, you remember dinner last night?"

"Vaguely-of course I do!" To my credit, I did not vocalize some of the epithets swirling around in my mind, only a tongue's reach away from twitching lips.

"You remember when that, uh, exotic dancer-Candy's her name-got up to use the ladies' room?"

"Just so you know, I do not suffer from dementia, Mr. Dorfman. I remember everything you're about to ask me."

"Oh, I ain't gonna ask you nothin' else. Anyway, I was thinking to myself that Candy was taking an awful long time in the powder room, even if she was doing all them things ladies sometimes do. Then I happened to glance out the window, and even though it was dark outside, on account of you have that security light, I could see her come out of the barn. She looks around, and then runs back up to the house. That's how come she was breathing so hard when she got back to the table. That weren't no asthma attack like she said."

My jaw dropped so far that I could have swallowed a sparrow, had one perchance flown into my mouth. To my recollection, Candy had not been gone that long-just long enough to do her business, wash her hands for thirty seconds using soap and hot water, and then tidy up the basin. But folks didn't tidy up after themselves anymore, did they? A lot of them didn't even bother to wash their hands-or so I've been told.

"What motive would she have? She didn't even know Doc. He's a sweet old man who wouldn't hurt a fly. His only fault is that he, uh, loves women."

"You mean he's as h.o.r.n.y as a billy goat?"

"If one must be crude." A flock of geese walked across my grave. Maybe that was it; old Doc had made a pa.s.s at Candy, who interpreted his attention as s.e.xual hara.s.sment. Rather than come to me with the problem, she'd taken the matter into her own hands. Perhaps she'd clobbered him with a pitchfork handle, or a piece of siding that pulled loose. Although nothing appeared to be missing, barns, like most folks' garages, tend to acc.u.mulate stuff, making it hard to account for things.

He chuckled, as if proud of himself for shocking me. Which he hadn't, of course.

"I'm ready whenever you are," he said with a leer.

"Why, I never!" Well, actually I have, but only within the confines of holy matrimony-although the first time wasn't quite so holy, given that the billy goat in question was still hitched to that harlot up in Minnesota. I'm exempting washing machines, of course, not that it's any of your business.

"Believe it or not, Miss Yoder, I am not the least bit interested in your past, no matter how checkered it might be. I just want the twenty thousand dollars you promised in this here flyer."

"I'll have you know that my past is not checkered. Lightly speckled, perhaps, but that's as much as I'll concede. As for the twenty big ones, first we'll have to see if your information leads to the arrest of Candy Brown for the a.s.sault on Doc Shafor."

"What's there to see? You are the power in this town, ain't you?"

"Well, I am mayor, and I do pay the chief's salary-get behind me, Satan!"

Harry glanced around nervously. "Where?"

"At the moment, he resides in you, dear. I will not be tempted to use my power-such as it is-to railroad that sweet little Polish girl, even if she dances for money."

"What sweet little Polish girl?"

"The one with all the freckles and the strawberry blond curls."

"Excuse me, Miss Yoder, but boy howdy, have you been bamboozled. That girl ain't Polish, and she don't dance at no South Pole neither. She dances in them topless bars where she wraps herself around a metal pole in all manner of suggestiveness."

I let that sink in before opening my big trap. "You mean-you don't mean that, do you?"

He nodded gravely. "I'm afraid I do. I don't know about youse guys, but in North Dakota, we consider that a worse sin than the real thing."

"Indeed!"

"So you'll arrest her?"