As the World Churns Page 4

  “Mom, are ya even listening?”

  “Of course I am, dear. Prattle on.”

  “So then she says that I gotta brush my teeth three times a day, instead of the two times ya make me do it, and that if I don’t, I can’t watch no TV.”

  “She lets you watch TV?” I don’t even own a set, much less allow Alison to watch it—although I’m not so stupid as to think that Alison doesn’t watch it when she’s on sleepovers, wherever they might take place. From a practical standpoint, I know that Alison is growing up in a world dominated by television, and that there is nothing I can do to change this. I do not, however, have to be part of the problem.

  “Mom, I wanna move back in here.”

  “But then you won’t get to watch any television.”

  “That’s okay. I’d rather read anyway.”

  I clasped the child of my heart to my heart. “I love you,” I whispered into her hair.

  “Yuck, Mom, don’t get gross.”

  I’d seldom been happier.

  Freni outdid herself in the kitchen that night: roast beef, mashed potatoes, pan gravy, green beans with bacon, baby peas with pearl onions, buttered corn, wilted endive salad, Jell-O salad with canned fruit, watermelon pickles, homemade chow-chow, homemade rolls, butter and homemade gooseberry jam, and, for dessert, freshly churned vanilla ice cream served with warm peach cobbler.

  Human nature being what it is, it never surprises me when guests don’t appreciate Freni’s culinary skills, or lack even the manners of a drunken orangutan. But whether they’re crude, or just plain rude, the one thing my guests must do is dress neatly for dinner and sit at their assigned places around my massive table. This table, by the way, was made by my ancestor Jacob the Strong, and it is the only thing to survive when my inn was demolished by a tornado some years back. At any rate, my place is at the head of the table, facing the kitchen, where I preside like a benevolent dictator—unless my guests misbehave. When that happens, my goodwill can dissolve just as quickly as a campaign promise.

  Because this is my establishment, I insist on saying grace before meals. Lately, however, in an effort to be inclusive, I have asked for volunteers—just as long as their version of grace is directed to the one true God, and doesn’t involve statues of any kind. I must admit that I am particularly pleased when Episcopalians and Roman Catholics volunteer to pray, since I know that their efforts will be brief, and thus the food will not get cold.

  There are times when I can’t get volunteers, but on this occasion, no sooner had I made the offer than Harmon Dorfman plunged right in. While it was immediately apparent that the beefy farmer from North Dakota was a Protestant of some sort, it eventually became clear that he didn’t know when to quit. After thanking the Good Lord for the food, he went on to ask for fair weather during the forthcoming competition, rain for the crops back home, peace and prosperity for those countries that deserved it (he named fourteen), cures for every disease imaginable (I lost count after twenty-six), immediate relief for Aunt Harriet’s lumbago and Uncle Marty’s shingles, funds for a new irrigation system…

  “Amen,” I said gently.

  “…and Thou knowest Stanley Dillbaker needs a new combine…”

  “Amen.”

  “…and we just thank you Lord for your tender mercies…”

  “Let’s hope the roast is still tender. Amen.”

  “…and soften the hearts, Lord, of those who wouldst…”

  “Amen,” I growled. “Oops—sorry, Lord.”

  There was a smattering of applause, mostly from Alison. Vance Brown immediately lunged for the mashed potatoes, while Harry Dorfman practically threw himself on the meat. You would have thought Harry would be used to long prayers—then again, maybe he was.

  “Miss Yoder,” Jane Pearlmutter muttered, “you don’t have to be so mean.”

  “What was that, dear?”

  “If you didn’t want him to take forever, you shouldn’t have asked him in the first place.”

  “Point well taken.” I turned to her handsome husband, Dick, whom I’d seated beside me on the left. “Tell me, how did you get interested in dairy cows?”

  “I love milk.”

  I smiled pleasantly. “Yes, but weren’t you a New York stockbroker?”

  “The stress got to be too much. My doctor said either I had to quit or risk a heart attack. I was kicking around for something else to do—I can’t just do nothing—when I remembered that my grandparents used to own a farm. I was just a little kid then, but even just thinking about it made me feel calm and peaceful. Then the more I thought about it, the more obsessed I became with the idea. To make a long story short, we bought a hundred and twenty acres about an hour outside the city, and I’ve never looked back. The hard part was convincing Jane to leave the rat race behind.”

  “You were a schoolteacher, right?” Despite her attitude, I was as sweet as a piece of brown sugar pie.

  “No.”

  “But I’m sure that was on your application.”

  “You must have me confused with someone else. Miss Yoder, I was—am—a board-certified plastic surgeon.”

  “And a very successful one too,” Vance said, the pride in his voice unmistakable. “She had a lot of celebrity patients. Go ahead, Jane, tell them who some of your patients were.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” she snapped.

  He grinned sheepishly. “But if she could tell you, you’d be amazed. Jane perfected a facelift technique that leaves virtually no scars.”

  “You must be referring to laser resurfacing,” Gertie said. “I’ve had some of that myself.” The poor thing seemed blissfully unaware that any resurfacing she’d had done, had long since reverted to potholes.

  I smiled charitably. “Isn’t that interesting, dear.”

  “It certainly wasn’t that,” Jane snapped. “My specialty is cutting, not lasers. In this technique I make small incisions at the back of the scalp, not just above the hairline, as is usually done. Then I thread ultrafine filaments—”

  “Yuck,” Alison said. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “What a capital idea,” I cried gaily. It was forced gaiety, of course. “Knock, knock, who’s there?”

  Alison groaned. “No, Mom. You don’t say ‘who’s there’; I do.”

  “No, really. Did any of you just hear a knock?”

  I heard it again. But it wasn’t so much a knock, as it was a thud. Nevertheless, didn’t the irritating interloper—it was the dinner hour, after all—see my lit doorbell? Even the Amish knew to use it, for heaven’s sake. As for my kin across the road, they don’t even knock before barging into my private bath.

  I smiled to hide my irritation. Although my facial muscles were getting an extraordinary workout, a good hostess must always exude a calm, collected air—right up until the moment she explodes.

  “Excuse me.”

  Being vertically enhanced, as I am, it didn’t take but a second or two to reach the foyer. Doc Shafor must have been still in the process of slumping, because when I opened the front door, he fell right in.

  Mere words cannot describe my horror when I saw Doc lying there. For one thing, his face was covered with blood. Atop his head was a bump larger than any goose egg I’d ever seen. Then there was the matter of his left arm, which appeared to have been taken off, and then reattached facing the wrong direction. If it hadn’t been for his white spats, I wouldn’t have known who it was.

  Sitting there, just outside the ICU of the Bedford County Memorial Hospital, I hardly felt any better. Doc had been cleaned up, of course, and was on medication to reduce the swelling in his brain, but he still hadn’t come around. As for his arm, not only had it been dislocated, but it had been broken in six places. His pelvis had a hairline fracture as well. His doctor said he was lucky to be alive.

  Chief Chris Ackerman of the Hernia police department squatted at my feet, a look of intense concern spread across his uncommonly handsome face. “Miss Yoder,” he said in a soot
hing voice, “he’s going to be all right. The doctor promised.”

  I shook my head. “But he’s an old man. How can someone have done that? Who could have done that?”

  “We’ll find out. Trust me.”

  “But it’s just you—I mean, no offense, but we haven’t gotten around to replacing Chief Hornsby-Anderson yet.”

  “Yes, but there’s you.”

  “Me?”

  “Miss Yoder, with all due respect to Sheriff Dewlapp’s competent department and the Bedford police, who is the single best sleuth in the county?”

  Despite my deep concern for Doc and the overall gravity of the situation, I felt myself blush. If Chris Ackerman had been attracted to women, and I not married to a very attractive and successful man, I would have pursued him like a hen after a junebug. Not only is he drop-dead gorgeous, but he’s kind and sensitive, and he smells like Irish Spring soap.

  “That would be me,” I said shyly.

  “What is your success rate?”

  “One hundred percent?”

  “That’s a fact, Miss Yoder, not a question.”

  “You’re right.” I pounded a shapely fist into a shapely palm. “By jingle, you’re right.”

  “Then what are you doing sitting here? I doubt Doc Shafor’s assailant is lurking these halls—although he might be. Tell you what, I’ll speak to the Bedford chief, since the hospital is his jurisdiction, and get a guard posted at the ICU door. And not to worry, I’ll get hospital security to send someone up to keep watch in the meantime. As for you, your family is waiting for you in the cafeteria. So go down there, get yourself a much-needed cup of hot chocolate, and then go home and get some rest. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, you can start grilling your suspects like wienies. Isn’t that how you put it?”

  “Charming, is it not?”

  “It is. Now go on.”

  I got up, fluffed my wrinkled skirt, and had just retrieved my pocketbook from a Formica end table piled high with tattered golf and fishing magazines when the thought struck me: why was Chris Ackerman trying to get rid of me so quickly? I turned to see his back disappearing down the hall.

  “Yoo-hoo.”

  He obviously hadn’t heard me.

  “Yoo-hoo!”

  He continued to get smaller.

  “You forgot the chocolate brownies!”

  Chris is twenty-three, but still has the appetite of a teenager. Even so, there isn’t a spare ounce of fat on him—just deeply tanned, rippling muscle. Anyway, since he lives by himself, and receives a pitiful salary, he has never been known to turn down food. In the past, he has stated he’d walk twenty miles for one of Freni’s brownies.

  He appeared to fly up the hall. “Are they Freni’s?”

  “Indeed, they are. Except they’re not here; they’re back at the inn.”

  “Hey, that’s a dirty trick.”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet, dear. Now tell me what gives.”

  “Gives?”

  “And don’t pretend to be ignorant. I didn’t fall off the cabbage truck; I have brassieres older than you, for Pete’s sake. I know when I’m being had. You couldn’t wait to get rid of me and go somewhere.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll confess. Miss Yoder—”

  “Isn’t it about time you called me Magdalena?”

  “Yeah, but you’re my mom’s age. Somehow it doesn’t seem right to call an older woman by her first name.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Now cut to the chase.”

  7

  Chris studied his imitation fine leather Italian shoes. “Back there in your barn—well, there was a message scrawled on the stall where Doc was attacked.”

  “Message? Scrawled? You don’t mean in blood, do you?”

  He nodded. “How’d you know?”

  “Unfortunately, from years of experience. What did it say?”

  “Mind yer own beezwax. Two of the words were misspelled.”

  My legs felt weak, so I groped for a chair. Like I said, I was no stranger to crime, but this was especially appalling. What on earth has happened to our educational system in this country? I learned spelling to the tune of a hickory stick, and though I’m most probably emotionally scarred for life, I’m quite capable of spelling three out of four words correctly. It’s only math that still gives me trouble.

  “What do you think it means, Chris?”

  He shook his fine young head. “The obvious conclusion to draw would be that it has to do with the contest; Doc saw or heard something he wasn’t supposed to. It could, however, be something totally unrelated. Did Doc have any enemies that you know of?”

  “Of course. He was an irascible old man, sometimes down-right cantankerous. He always used to say that if a man doesn’t have any enemies by the time he reaches eighty, then he hasn’t been living his life right. But I’m not sure how much of that was just bluster.”

  I yawned. “Sorry. It’s been a busy day. Check-in days are always hectic, and now this.” I yawned again.

  “Just one more question, Magdalena. You were having dinner when Doc crawled to the door. Were all your guests with you at the time?”

  “Yes, every single one.”

  “And Freni?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Freni feels bad when she kills flies. Besides—”

  “She might have heard something that the rest of you didn’t.”

  “Maybe, but not likely. She was in the kitchen talking to her buns. She tends to tune everything else out when she does that.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Cinnamon buns for tomorrow morning. Freni believes in talking to the dough; she tells it how much to rise, and when. It’s quite a little speech she gives them.”

  “They must listen, because her buns are the best.”

  “So what happens now? What if some of my guests decide to check out on account of what happened?”

  “Don’t let them. Not until I’ve had a chance to interview them.”

  “How do I stop them?”

  “Stall them; you’re great at obfuscation, aren’t you?”

  “One of the best,” I said modestly. “Chris, you were hoping to get to the barn before I got home, so that you could clean up Doc’s blood. And erase the message, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  For a split second, I considered hugging his handsome self to my somewhat comely self, but genetics took over. We Yoders are incapable of spontaneous expressions of emotion, especially if they involve physical contact. If we must, we can schedule hugs, but they must last less than thirty seconds and be accompanied by constant backslapping. Show me a Yoder who can hug without backslapping, and I’ll show you a Yoder with rigor mortis. Okay, so there may be a few exceptions.

  “Well, I better get a move on down to the cafeteria before my loved ones ingest anything more than coffee. One person at death’s door is quite enough for one night.”

  He laughed, before giving me a Presbyterian hug. I must say, it didn’t feel all that bad.

  My groom drove me back to the inn, and not a second too soon—my guests were in the process of mutinying. My lovely front lawn had been turned into a traffic jam of trucks and cattle carriers. Horns blared, men brawled, women brayed, but the cows, ignorant as they were of alliteration, merely lowed.

  Gabe stared in disbelief. “Holy guacamole!”

  There was no time to waste. I threw myself from the still-moving car, hiked my skirts to about knee level, and then leapt onto the hood of the Dorfman brothers’ pickup. Their truck, by the way, was not moving, and I may have glossed over a few clumsy moves on my part, but you get the point.

  Cupping my hands to my mouth, I gave the infamous “Yoder yell.” The Yoder yell, for those unfamiliar with its history, is said to have originated with Eve Yoder when she gave birth to Cain Yoder, after having been banished, along with Adam Yoder, from the Garden of Eden. I’m not saying I believe that; my point is that we�
��ve long been known for our lung power.

  When the mutineers and their livestock heard me, they froze. Then, one by one, they gasped as they realized where the unearthly sound was coming from. Indeed, I must have appeared as an evil apparition, perched as I was three feet off the ground. Even the cows regarded me, their eyes wide with terror.

  Harmon Dorfman was the first to react. “Miss Yoder, what in tarnation are you doing atop my truck?”

  Using my chin, I gestured to my feet. “No harm done, Harmon. These sensible black brogans have soles as soft as sponge cake.”

  “That may be, Miss Yoder, but I paid a pretty penny for her. Please get down.”

  “In a minute, dear.”

  My darling husband held out his arms, as if he intended for me to jump into them. “Hon, you heard the man. Get down.”

  It was, in retrospect, a reasonable request. However, in addition to being genetically gifted in the lung department, and sadly deficient in the hug department, we Yoders sometimes carry the gene for contrariness. Tell us to go right, and we’ll go left. Of course those of us with that gene have long since separated from the Amish, who adhere to a code of obedience, and most of us are no longer even Mennonite. But there are exceptions to every rule, I suppose, because I am still of the faith, even though I am every bit as obstinate as a second-generation president.

  “Listen up, folks,” I continued to holler, “none of you are leaving, because all of you were here when poor old Doc Shafor was assaulted.”

  “So were you,” Candy Brown chirped.

  I glared at the woman who dared jiggle her keester at the South Pole. Since it was dark, and she couldn’t see my expression clearly, it didn’t really count as mean-spirited.

  “You’re quite right, my dear. So I’ll stay here as well.”

  “Suit yourself,” Jane Pearlmutter muttered. “But you have no legal right to prevent us from leaving.”