"So it was you who stabbed the actor with the pitchfork?"
"He isn't an actor, Melvin. He's the assistant director. And I didn't stab him."
"Then you shot him? Magdalena, did you just lie to Zelda?"
"Yes, I told her I adored you. Look, Melvin, somebody by the name of Don Manley has a pitchfork through his gut. Are you going to sit there and talk about it all day, or what?"
"You're toying with me again, Magdalena, aren't you? Did you or did you not stab this man with a pitchfork?"
"I did not stab him!" I clamped a hand over my own mouth, which hopefully muffled the sound a little.
In my case it is risky business, shouting loud enough to wake the dead.
"You said you were guilty a minute ago."
"Of answering the phone, Melvin, not murder."
"Yeah, sure. How do you know it was murder, then? Maybe the guy fell on the fork."
"He's standing up, Melvin. Pinned to a beam like a butterfly. You know, like the ones on display in our biology room in high school."
"I didn't take biology in high school, Magdalena. My folks got a special exemption for me, on account of I'm allergic to the smell of formaldehyde."
"That figures." I mean, if Melvin had taken biology, perhaps he would have known enough not to try to milk a bull.
"What does that mean, Magdalena?"
I ignored his hostile tone. "The point is, Melvin, that there's a man in my barn with a pitchfork through his middle, and it wasn't an accident, and he didn't put it there himself."
"The first rule in police work is not to rule out anything until you have concrete evidence to the contrary," said Melvin pompously.
"So?"
"So, maybe the guy did do it to himself. Suicide by impalement is not as uncommon as you think. The Japanese - "
"Would you care to give me a demonstration?" I asked hopefully. I hung up the phone. Experience has taught me that this was the fastest way to get Melvin out here. As long as it was going to be Melvin, and not Zelda, I wanted to get it allover with as soon as possible.
I walked, rather than ran, back to the barn. I wasn't in a hurry to see some Hollywood honcho, even an arrogant one like Don Manley, nailed to a beam. On the way, I passed the old outhouse, which, of course, is no longer in use. The door had somehow come open, so I closed it, and not without pride. It is a six-seater, after all, the only six-seater outhouse in the county, according to old Doc Shafer, our local historian. It was built back in Great Grandpa Yoder's time, but even Doc Shafer can't figure out why so many seats were needed.
Between the outhouse and the barn lies the chicken coop. Really, it is a large, fenced-in hen yard with a wooden structure housing the laying boxes. At any given moment there are likely to be as many as six to eight hens sitting on the boxes doing their thing. At least that can be explained.
I know all my chickens by name, but my favorite is Pertelote, a Rhode Island Red of great dignity. Pertelote is too old to lay anymore, but the nesting instinct still beats strong within her feathered breast. From time to time she usurps the nests of lesser hens, and if left undisturbed, hatches the adopted eggs herself. Despite the fact that Pertelote has gotten a bit cranky with advancing age, she is an excellent mother to her foster chicks, whatever their race. In fact, Pertelote had recently raised a brood of Leghorns, and I was experimenting with her on a small clutch of duck eggs, of which she seemed rather fond. Therefore, I was a bit surprised to find Pertelote out in the hen yard.
"Go back to your eggs," I admonished her, "or Freni will fricassee you." It wasn't an idle threat either, because Freni has had her eye on Pertelote's plump rump for a year or two, even though shoe leather would be more tender than a chicken Pertelote's age.
Of course Pertelote ignored my warning, and I made a mental note to check on her surrogate eggs when I had time. Duck eggs are, after all, larger than chicken eggs, and an old thing like Pertelote might find the task of straddling them day in and day out a bit wearing.
Anyway, it took me a couple of minutes to get back to the barn, so I guess I'm responsible for what happened while I was gone. Steven, alias Bugsy, had managed to pull the pitchfork out of the beam, and in doing so, out of Don. It hadn't been Steven's intent to pull the fork out of Don, it had simply been an accident, one of which no one seemed to disapprove. The sight of Don impaled like a shish kebab concerned folks more than did the damage they might cause him by removing the fork. Don now lay prone at the base of the beam, although the pitchfork was nowhere to be seen. Almost as startling to me as Don's new position was the fact that his face had gone from white to gray.
"What on earth happened?" I demanded, elbowing my way through the crowd.
"We had to get him off the post," said a cameraman who I think was named AI. "He was still alive, you know."
"He couldn't have been!"
"But he was," said one of the makeup girls. Her name I knew. It was Heather, one of those ubiquitous plant names so popular in the seventies. Although just a child herself, this Heather looked like she was about to give birth to a whole field of Heatherettes.
I just shook my head. He was definitely dead now. I'm no expert, but I've seen pot roasts with more life in them than Don had at that moment.
"He spoke," said AI. "We all heard him say something."
"What?"
"I don't know," said Heather. "Something." She started to cry.
"I think it started with 'M,' " said AI.
"He was probably calling for his mother," I explained, although it was hard to imagine Don Manley ever having had a mother. Even if she were still alive, the San Diego Zoo would probably not release her without a lot of red tape.
Steven spat on his hands, and then rubbed them on his pants. Apparently he had gotten blood on them while unpinning Don. "Did you make the call?"
The sounding siren of Hernia's one squad car answered for me. A few seconds later, the Bedford paramedics pulled up as well.
-7-
"But you've known me my whole life!" I protested.
Police Chief Melvin Stoltzfus rotated his head slowly in my direction. For some reason, he'd been looking at Zelda, who, I think, was supposed to be taking notes. It was not inconceivable that he had a crush on her. "Familiarity is not a legal defense, Yoder."
"But I'm a Mennonite! A pacifist. I don't go around stabbing people with pitchforks."
"There's a first time for everything. And Mennonites do commit crimes of violence. Remember Leyland Neubrander? He ran over his mother-in-law with a combine in November of eighty-three."
"You weren't even a policeman then," I reminded him. The three of us were standing alone in the barn with the door shut. Outside I could hear the crowd milling and murmuring.
Melvin's huge head bobbled momentarily on his long, thin neck, as if it were trying to steady itself. There is something about Melvin, perhaps his bulging eyes, that always reminds me of a praying mantis. "I may not have been on the force then, Magdalena, but I know the case. Leyland Neubrander is my cousin."
That didn't surprise me. Melvin Stoltzfus is my cousin too, if you go back far enough. That's something I try to refrain from doing in his case.
"Forget Leyland Neubrander and his being a Mennonite. The point is that I'm not a killer."
"You threatened him in public, Magdalena."
"I did not!"
"Yes, you did. I have depositions from at least five witnesses who say they heard you threaten to kill him."
My heart began to pound. "I said something to the effect that he could shoot that lurid scene only over my dead body. I certainly didn't threaten to kill him."
"You said over his dead body," said Melvin pompously.
"I don't see what difference that makes. You know I didn't mean it."
Melvin's left eye swiveled ever so slightly, but independently, in its socket. "The difference is that his body, not yours, was found nailed to the center beam in your barn."
"Forked," I corrected him.
I don't think Melvin heard me. "And, Magdalena, what makes this even more interesting is that it was your sister, Susannah, who found the victim first."
"Why, Melvin Stoltzfus!" I said loud enough to make Zelda jump. "You leave Susannah out of this. How can you even imply such a thing? She is your girlfriend, after all."
Melvin's right eye began to swivel now, away from his left. Perhaps he did have hindsight, a trait undoubtedly useful to a detective. "Can you account for your time up until Susannah discovered the body?"
I felt suddenly relaxed. "Of course I can. I was in the inn all morning. Either in the public rooms with the others, or in the kitchen with Freni and Mose."
"And they'll swear to it?" I couldn't help laughing. "Freni and Mose won't swear to anything. It's against their beliefs. You know that."
Melvin's eyes swiveled back into alignment. "The others, I mean. Are you sure you have alibis?"
"Then I am a suspect?" I glanced quickly at Zelda, but as usual she was inscrutable. I've seen hens with more facial expression than Zelda Root.
"Let's just say that at this point everyone out here is a suspect." Melvin began to rub his hands together briskly. "And you, Magdalena Yoder, are what we might call suspecto numero uno."
"Speak English, Melvin," I said crisply, although it's possible it may have sounded like snapping.
"He means you're our number one suspect," said Zelda dispassionately. I am one hundred percent sure that the woman's family tree and mine have never intertwined their branches. We are at polar ends of the nervous spectrum.
I held out my wrists. "I demand to see my lawyer."
Melvin's eyes swiveled away from center for a second, then locked back into place in a prolonged stare. "You aren't under arrest, Magdalena. Not yet, at any rate. But I am going to have to ask you not to leave the area."
"Shucks. My flight to Paris was nonrefundable."
Either Melvin smiled slightly, or his mandibles twitched. "I'll solve this case before you know it, Magdalena. It's simply a matter of gathering the facts and arranging them in the proper order. Yessiree, it's all a matter of facts."
"What about gathering evidence, Melvin?"
Melvin's mandibles mangled themselves into what approximated a self-satisfied grin. "The body is halfway to Bedford by now, Yoder."
"And the murder weapon? Have you collected that yet?"
It was like an entire marquee of light bulbs had flicked on in Melvin's head. "I was getting to that, Yoder. First things first. Now, let me see this pitchfork."
"Can't."
"Withholding evidence will land you in the hoosegow immediately, Yoder, without even a chance to pass go."
"Go fish, Melvin. I don't have the pitchfork, or I'd let you have it." I then proceeded to explain to Melvin a million times that the pitchfork was missing. You wouldn't think that would be such a hard concept to grasp. I mean, by the time Melvin and Zelda arrived, there had been the body, surrounded by a crowd of people, but there had been no pitchfork. There was only a thin line of blood, along with some other horrible ooze, where Steven had tossed the pitchfork. There was no sign of the fork itself.
For the next two hours Melvin and Zelda ransacked my barn, but of course they didn't turn up any pitchfork. It was gone, just like I'd said. You can bet your bippy I made them put everything back in its place. A barn should be kept just as tidy as a house. After all, the good Lord was born in a barn, wasn't he?
"If it shows up, call me at once, Yoder," said Melvin needlessly. Of course I wouldn't call him - not until after I'd had a good long turn at examining the thing. Even then I might forget to call him, or even accidentally lose the pitchfork again, depending on what I discovered.
"Will do," I said, and smiled. When you have to lie, it is wise to smile. Smiling helps keep one from blinking, the sure giveaway of a liar. Now, don't get me wrong: lying is a sin, but it is one of the more necessary sins. And since I don't indulge much in the other sins, having never committed adultery or coveted my neighbor's ass, I don't feel too bad when I have to lie. And when it comes to dealing with Melvin, having to lie is a given.
After Melvin and Zelda drove off in Melvin's re- stored Studebaker which doubles as his squad car, I went to check on Pertelote. To my relief, nothing was amiss. She had settled back on the duck eggs, and although she had to spread out as thin as a crepe suzette to cover the things, she seemed as happy as a clam, or whatever it is happy hens resemble. She seemed much happier, at any rate, than an old hen had a right to be. Clearly, whatever had disturbed her earlier was a thing of the past.
