Gruel and Unusual Punishment Read online

  I clamped both hands over my ears, and in the process hit myself on the chin with my pocketbook. "I don't want to hear it!" I wailed.

  Susannah forced my left elbow down and steered me into the house. "He may be dreamy, but you should see her. Ugh, what a dog."

  I put my right hand down voluntarily. "Do tell."

  Susannah does not wear dresses as we know them. She wraps herself in fifteen feet of filmy fuchsia fabric in free-form fashion, sort of like a messy sari. Because of the loose fit it is impossible to tell that she carries a dinky dog around in her bra. The mongrel mutt's name is Shnookums, a nasty beast that is sixty percent sphincter muscle and forty percent teeth. It is hard to say which is worse, his bark—a high-pitched yip that can shatter wineglasses— or his bite.

  At any rate, when lowering my right hand I accidentally grazed the front of my sister's getup, setting that insidious creature off like the antitheft device on a car. It was a good thing we were inside, or half the folks on the block would have been peeking out their windows. In Hernia, spying on one's neighbors is de rigueur.

  "Shnookums, your Auntie Magdalena didn't mean to hurt you," my sister said in baby talk.

  Of course the rat didn't listen. I would have stuck the canine alarm in a closet until he piped down or his lungs wore out, whichever came first. But Susannah pampers that pathetic pooch excessively, and began crooning doggy nursery rhymes. Meanwhile I tapped one of my size-eleven brogans impatiently.

  "Please," I finally begged over the din, "can't you just put him out in the backyard or something?"

  Susannah gave me the look pit bulls reserve for mailmen. "My bundle of joy's been going through a lot of stress, Mags."

  "This is no picnic at the beach for me either, dear."

  "I know it's because his daddy's been neglecting him. But how do I explain that to him?"

  "Tell him his daddy was a stray dog that roamed from yard to yard, and he shouldn't take it personally."

  To my great happiness, my remark about Shnookum's paternity shut him up. Perhaps it gave him something to ponder. No doubt he already knew he was the son of a bitch, but having a pooch for a pop was food for thought.

  "Shhh!" Susannah peeked into the flimsy folds of her pseudofrock. "Not that daddy," she whispered. "Melvin."

  I nodded. Who knew how much, if anything, Melvin had told his wife about the Clarence Webber case. But as far as I was concerned, the less Susannah knew, the better.

  "Okay, I won't disparage his lineage if we can get back to Aaron and that woman. Is she really that homely?"

  Susannah made the same face she makes when she accidentally eats a vegetable. "Remember Eunice Zook?"

  I nodded. Eunice was a year ahead of me in school, and the homeliest woman I'd ever seen. Too poor to afford plastic surgery, she put a ski mask over her head and turned to a life of crime. Eventually she robbed enough gas stations and small-town banks to pay for the operation, but decided she rather liked the stocking cap. When she was finally arrested in New Jersey she was a wealthy woman, and had long since put her life of crime behind her. But she'd been unable to part with the ski mask, and that's what tipped off authorities that torrid day in July.

  "Well, Eunice was a beauty queen compared to this woman. And jeez, talk about rotten dispositions. Even you're nicer than her."

  "Thanks, dear. So she's a real witch, huh?"

  "I don't know what Aaron sees in her."

  "Maybe she's rich." I doubted the woman had more money than I.

  "Mags, I don't think he likes her all that much."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Well, he kept sneaking peeks at that photo of you on the TV, and whenever he said your name, it was like he was in church or something."

  I'm only human, and can't be blamed for the thoughts that pop into my head. Acting on them is another thing, however.

  "Get behind me, Satan," I said. That seemed to do the trick.

  "Hey," Susannah said, almost as if it was an afterthought. "They left this wad of papers for you. What's it all about?"

  "I've decided to become a mother."

  "What? Aaron and that—that—woman are going to be surrogate parents for my niece?"

  I smiled broadly. "How did you know it was a girl? Actually, dear, they're not the surrogate parents, but the biological ones. I've agreed to look after their daughter for a while."

  Susannah's eyes widened to the point that I worried they might literally pop out. All that eye-rolling she does can only mean that they're not anchored very well.

  "Holy shoot!" She used a more vulgar term, of course.

  I filled her in on the details, signed the papers, and left them in her care. Before leaving I made her promise that she wouldn't try to set up an "accidental meeting" between Aaron and me. Even without my bifocals I can read my sister's mind, and that's exactly what she would have done.

  When I pulled out of the driveway she was cooing into the creases of her clingy costume. The sound of my engine had startled the mangy menace and she was doing her best to mollify him. I said a quick prayer that Susannah wouldn't become a real mother anytime soon. As I well know, there are limitations to even the most spacious brassieres, and I sure as shooting didn't want my niece or nephew to share real estate with the hound from Hell.

  It was time to roll up my broadcloth sleeves and get to work. Who killed Clarence Webber, and who on earth—and this still made me shudder—whipped him repeatedly with a guitar string? The culprits could have been one and the same, but not necessarily. Undoubtedly the use of wire was a sexual thing. One thing amateur sleuthing has taught me is that there is no end to the bizarre behavior folks are capable of, and sex is the largest category on that ever-expanding list. If only people did it as the Good Lord intended—strictly within the confines of marriage, face to face, once a month, and for three minutes at a time—the world would be such a better place. There would be no teenage pregnancies, no so-called social diseases, and a marked improvement in the economy, thanks to all that effort redirected. But oh no, the devil has turned our heads and we—and I mean society in general—engage in things that would make the Whore of Babylon blush.

  You know, we wouldn't have all these perverse practices to contend with if it weren't for dancing. All that gyrating is poison for the soul. It's worse than sex. In her birds-and-the-bees talk, Mama warned me never to let my future husband pass me his seed in a standing position, lest it lead to dancing. Whenever we drove by the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Bedford, Mama would waggle a bony finger and hiss, "That's the den of iniquity, Magdalena.

  That's where the devil lollygags about, waiting to seduce young girls like you. Don't you ever go near that place. Or your school gym either."

  I listened to Mama, of course. While my liberal Methodist and Presbyterian friends attended sock hops (in Bedford, not Hernia) where they did the Twist, the Freddie, and the Funky Chicken, I stayed home and did the laundry. But Mama forgot to warn me that the devil only worked at Arthur Murray's. His real home was our 1957 Maytag with the unbalanced legs. The first time I sat on the machine to hold it in place, well—I better not go there, as I've become fond of saying. My point is, even that incident, in a roundabout way, was related to dancing. At least it didn't involve guitar strings.

  Based on what I knew about sex and its relationship to dancing, I decided to begin my investigation with Dorcas Yutzy. Last year she had raised quite a ruckus by attempting to teach square dancing in her high school girls' gym classes. Granted, it would have been girls dancing with girls, but in this day and age that can be problematic as well. The irony is that the students really liked it, and even the Mennonite girls weren't about to squeal, until one mother finally figured out that the Virginia Reel her daughter was raving about wasn't a transfer student.

  Believe me, I'm not ascribing evil intentions to Dorcas Yutzy for her choice of curriculum. Although she has Mennonite and Amish ancestors, Dorcas is a second-generation Presbyterian with
a Catholic grandfather. The woman can't be expected to know better. All I'm trying to say is that Dorcas, more than any other of the suspects on my list, seemed to have a connection with sex. At least it was a place to start.

  I parked my newly modest means of transportation under a sweet gum tree on Briarcliff and hoofed it the two blocks to Main. I wasn't trying to sneak up on Dorcas; this is the oldest section of Hernia, and by far the most attractive. The majority of the houses are two-story Victorians with enough gingerbread to keep Hansel and Gretel fat for life. I'll take any excuse to walk in this part of town, and on pleasant evenings Gabe and I often drive in for a stroll.

  Romantic that I am, I pretended Gabe was with me now as I walked. "You see that yellow one there with the gray trim? That's where Wilmer and Henrietta Augsberger used to live. They never had children—at least not officially—but folks were always seeing little faces pressed to the glass on that third-story gable over there. Ah, and that house, the one with the huge blue spruce in the front yard, that's where Otto and Lovinia Petersheim live. They have sixteen children, and all but one of them moved away. He still lives at home, and he's the reason you see those cardboard boxes piled up at the side door. Booze boxes. Vodka, I think they say." I turned right on Main. "I know I told you about the crazy pastor's wife, the one who locked me in a burning outhouse. That's her house over there, only she no longer lives in it, of course. Some rich retirees from the Big Apple snapped it up." I stopped. "Well, this is it. This little white dollhouse that looks totally out of place belongs to Dorcas Yutzy. She lives with her elderly mother who's as deaf as a fence post. It's what folks hereabouts call a Grossdawdi hause. Back when Hernia was just a couple of Amish farms, this house was built on one of them as a place for grandparents to live. Rumor has it that it was connected by a tunnel to the main farmhouse, so the elderly couple could attend family dinners in inclement weather. That original house burned down a hundred years ago or so. If memory serves me right, Dorcas was born in this cute little cottage."

  Leaving Gabe behind, I strode up a walk so clean I wouldn't hesitate to lick gravy off it with my tongue. On either side early plantings of periwinkles had already filled into a solid border. Pairs of glazed pickle crocks bearing bright red geraniums crowned each step. At the windows hung snow-white lace curtains.

  The front door opened as I reached for the bell. "Magdalena Yoder!"

  "That's my name, dear. Don't wear it out."

  Dorcas giggled. "You here to see me? Oh, I hope you are.

  Mother's napping, so this happens to be a perfect time for a visit. Although you're welcome to come—"

  "Actually I'm here to visit the little troll who lives under your porch."

  Take it from me, sometimes it's not wise to tease a six-foot-five- inch gym teacher. In her haste to look under the porch, the gangly gal nearly trampled me.

  "I was just kidding," I gasped, as she tried to prop me up against a wooden railing.

  "Well, I have been hearing noises under there. I thought maybe it was a cat, or a raccoon, but then when you said—never mind. Would you like to come in and have tea?"

  "That would be lovely, dear."

  Dorcas led me into an immaculate, if minuscule, sitting room. A Victorian settee, two matching side chairs, and a marble-topped coffee table were crammed into a space barely larger than my closet at home, which, by the way, is not of the walk-in variety.

  I sat on the chair nearest the door, so I wouldn't feel claustrophobic. While Dorcas clomped about in the kitchen, I studied the cubicle closely. Other than an oil painting of reed-boat fishermen on Lake Titicaca, there were no adornments. Not even a single photo graced the walls or table. I will say however, that Dorcas Yutzy doesn't suffer dust bunnies. I could have licked those floors as well.

  "Well, here we are," she said, as she entered carrying a bamboo tray with two ceramic mugs—one from Disney World, one from Busch Gardens. Both mugs, by the way, had more chips than a New Jersey casino. "I didn't know if you took lemon or cream, so I put in both."

  "Isn't that how one makes cottage cheese, dear?"

  She giggled again. "Not both in the same cup, of course. I drink it both ways, so you get to choose."

  I chose the lemon. They're supposed to be sour. Having been raised on a farm, and owning two Holstein cows of my own, I'm very picky about my dairy products. There are few things worse than being forced to down a glass of milk that has just turned.

  Without spilling a drop of her own tea, Dorcas managed to fold her body into a zigzag that could be accommodated by the other chair. Her knees nearly touched her chin.

  "So, to what do I owe the honor?" she asked.

  I took a sip of tea. It was surprisingly good.

  "Well, dear, I understand you knew the late Clarence Webber."

  The milky tea sloshed over the edge of Dorcas's cup. It's a good thing she was wearing a man's thick sweat suit, or she might well have been burned.

  "Oh, so that's what this is about. Magdalena, you're working for Melvin Stoltzfus again, aren't you?"

  There was no use in denying it. "It's not like I get paid, dear. I consider it my civic duty."

  She stared at me for moment, her eyes as big as boulders behind the thick lenses. "In that case, Magdalena, you might as well know everything."

  "Spill it, dear," I said blithely.

  "Clarence Webber was my husband."

  8

  "Get out of town!" I cried, as lemony tea found my lap. Fortunately, by then it was no longer scalding.

  The huge irises registered surprise.

  "It's just an expression," I said, dabbing at my lap with a useless paper napkin. "I picked it up from my sister. Did I just hear you say Clarence Webber was your husband?"

  She nodded. "We were married on Valentine's Day."

  "But your name—you're still a Yutzy, aren't you?"

  " 'Klutzy Yutzy,' that's what my students call me. That's what everyone's been calling me since I was a kid. But yes, in answer to your question, I kept my maiden name. A girl doesn't have to give everything away when she marries."

  I couldn't have agreed more. If only I hadn't given my most precious possession to that bigamist Aaron on our wedding night. And to think that all I got in return was a nasty little prick. I should have known that the hat pin I was wrapping—which I intended as a tie tack for Aaron—was sharp enough to draw blood. But how was I to know that the cheap rhinestone pin I had found hidden in Mama's dresser drawer after she died was really solid gold, and that the so-called rhinestone was a VSI diamond of good color?

  "So, you kept your maiden name, dear, good for you! But the two of you didn't live together. Not in this house. Isn't that a bit more unusual?"

  She blinked, her lashes magnified to the point where they resembled licorice sticks. "How do you know we didn't live together?"

  I smiled kindly. "This is Hernia, dear. We're one big family. In fact, you and I are second or third cousins, I think."

  "Second cousins twice removed on my father's side," she said. "Fifth cousins on my mother's side in both the Weaver and Miller branches. Say, don't you have a bit of Berkey blood as well?"

  "Yes, dear. Anyway, the town was named after a rupture my great-great-great-great-grandfather, and founding father, Amos Stucky, suffered when he was building that very first log cabin up by Settler's Cemetery. There hasn't been a secret kept since then."

  "Well, you didn't know I was married," she said defensively.

  "Didn't. That's the operative word, dear. But tell me something— why were you married, if you weren't going to live together?"

  Dorcas grinned, displaying her jack-o'-lantern teeth. It wasn't that she didn't have a full contingent—although I didn't count them—but the simple fact that her mouth was so large that an even spread was sure to cause gaps.

  "Because of another secret. One you don't know."

  I'm not psychic, because I don't believe in that stuff. I do, however, have good i
nstincts. And ever since the gangly gym teacher had revealed that she was married, a stubborn thought had been kicking around in my brain. Yes, Dorcas had Mennonite and Amish ancestors, but that didn't make her a paragon of virtue. Besides, like I said, she was a second-generation Presbyterian with a Catholic grandfather. That made her capable of virtually anything.

  I gave her the quick once-over. Yup, just as I suspected, the woman was pregnant. While my womb may be as fruitful as the Kalahari in drought, I've seen enough women in her condition to recognize the signs.

  Although Dorcas was a big enough gal that she could carry a baby elephant to full term and still not show a stomach, she had that certain glow every expectant mother I've ever known has exhibited. In Dorcas's case, if the glow got any brighter, someone was likely to swipe her head and save it for Halloween.

  I cupped my left hand to the corresponding ear. "I hear the potential patter of little feet," I said. "Am I right?"

  I wouldn't have thought it possible, but Dorcas's grin widened. "Does it show?"

  There are times when the Good Lord doesn't mind a white lie or two if it will make someone happy. Of that I'm sure.

  "You're enormous, dear." She could take that as she wished.

  She tugged at her sweats, and for the first time I saw the barest hint of a belly. "You really think so?"

  "Immense. So where were you married, dear?" I study the marriage license list on a weekly basis, and had not seen her name. Believe me, I'd have remembered it.

  "Cumberland."

  "Maryland?" I shuddered. It had to be. Cumberland is only thirty-two miles south of Hernia, but because it is across the state line, it offers an anonymity Bedford can't. It may as well be on the other side of the world. I'm not saying anything against Cumberland, mind you, but it's where serious sinners from Hernia go to misbehave. "If you have to do it in Cumberland," Mama used to say, "you better get down on your knees and have a talk with the Good Lord." So far, thank Heaven and knock on wood, I've never had to go to Cumberland.