Play It Again, Spam (16 page)

the speed of lava.

" Ach, she was there last night. I asked her if she needed anything, and she said she could use a little milk. I promised to

drop it by this morning on my way to work. Six o'clock, I tell her."

"You're two-timing me with Old Irma?" Of course I was only teasing.

"Ach! The Bible says to give what we have to the poor, and I have lots of milk."

"I know, dear, I was only pulling your leg. Maybe Old Irma forgot about your appointment. Maybe she was sleeping in." Both

Amish and Mennonites are notoriously early risers. I wouldn't be surprised if Mama still gets up at five, even in Heaven.

"Yah, first I think maybe that is so, because her car is there. But then I remember Old Irma can't hear so well. Maybe she has

not put in the - uh - uh - "

"Hearing aid?"

"Yah. That's what I think to myself, so I knock even louder."

"And?"

"The door opened."

"So you checked inside, of course." The fact that the door was unlocked was irrelevant to our conversation. Nobody in Hernia

locks their doors - except for me. And even I would probably not be doing that if Little Eddy Beiler hadn't wandered in one fine

afternoon when I was alone and with a flip of his topcoat proved to me that he was misnamed.

"Yah, I went in and checked. No Old Irma."

"Hmm. Maybe she went out for a walk and just didn't shut it tight behind her."

Sam scratched his sparsely covered chin. "Yah, maybe so. Except for one thing."

"Yes?"

"Maybe it is not such a big thing."

"What is it?" I practically screamed. "Do I need to get a crowbar to pry out this morsel ?"

Sam looked like a sheep who correctly answered his algebra question. "Uh - "

"Just tell me!"

"Old Irma left the water running in the kitchen sink."

"That is serious." I wasn't being facetious, either. Not only can Old Irma lacerate lactose with her lingua, she can pinch a

penny until it screams. It was clear to me that Hernia's most acerbic centenarian was not just missing, she'd been abducted.

"Maybe you should call Melvin," Samuel said quietly.

"Definitely so," I said, and reached for the phone. "Good. But be patient, Magdalena. Melvin Stoltzfus is sometimes a difficult

man."

"Sometimes? The man was a breach birth, for crying out loud, and he grows into a bigger pain every day. But don't you worry

about him - Vee haf our vays."

Sam laughed nervously while I dialed.

My nemesis picked up on the first ring. "You have reached 555-9247," he said in a monotone. "I'm sorry we're unable to

come to the phone right now - "

"Melvin, I know that's you!"

"So please leave your message after the beep."

I waited until the beep. "Melvin is a big fat idiot," I shouted, my mouth pressed against the receiver.

"Ach! Ach!" Sam was flapping his arms in distress, so I motioned him out of the room. Apparently some of my ways are a little

too English for the Australian.

"Melvin! This is official police business and if you don't stop this nonsense I'm telling your mama what you did last night."

His gasp flattened my ear against the receiver. "Yoder, is that you?"

"Is that Mags?" I heard Susannah whisper in the background.

"Of course it's me. Who else would be foolish enough to call you at this hour of the morning?"

"You won't tell Mama, will you, Yoder? I mean, we're getting married tomorrow, and we only - "

"Can it, Melvin. I don't want to know what you and Susannah did, or didn't do. I want you to hop into your official police car

and drive on out to Irma Yoder's place. That's Old Irma out on Kuntzler Lane."

Melvin gasped again, and my ear practically disappeared into the phone. "What for, Yoder?"

"She's disappeared."

"You mean she died?" He sounded hopeful.

"I don't know. She's missing from her house. Sam - StrubblySam - says he was supposed to deliver milk to her this morning,

and no one was there."

"That means nothing, Yoder."

"Perhaps. But her car was there - and the water was running in the kitchen sink. Melvin, this is something you should check

out."

"Don't tell me my job, Yoder."

"Do I detect a hint of fear, dear? Old Irma may have a gouda-gouging tongue, but you're still bigger than her."

There was a moment of terrified silence. "I'm not afraid of her, Yoder."

"Of course not, dear, I didn't think you were. So, you'll check on her."

"Yes, damn it."

"Don't you swear on my phone line," I snapped, and hung up. Hard.

I am a God-fearing woman, and dress like one. No strumpet-scarlet or prostitute pink for me, thank you very much. Ditto for

yuppie yellow. The Good Lord created black before any other color - just read your Bible - when he created the darkness upon

the face of the earth. Then came blue for the sky and sea, and green for plants. These are the colors he prefers us to dress in, if

you ask me. But when it comes to cars, I'm sure the kind Creator looks the other way - at least He never seems to have penalized

me for my red BMW.

At any rate, Tuesday morning, the day of my sister's shindig, I carefully selected a navy blue dress that would take me

through to the evening and a pair of comfortable black brogans. Of course my dress sleeves extended beyond the elbows and my

skirt length well below the knees. Even the Lord isn't fond of looking at those.

When I was decently attired and had my hair neatly swept into a bun and covered with an organza prayer cap, I stepped out

into the hall. Now, I consider myself to be a calm, sensible woman, so you can imagine how startled I was by the looming shape of

Scott Montgomery when I tell you I literally jumped out of my shoes.

"What on earth are you doing lurking outside my bedroom door?" I demanded.

To be honest, he seemed every bit as surprised as I. Fortunately for him, he had laced his shoes tighter.

"Oh! Uh - well, I was coming to see you."

"You were?" I must confess to feeling vaguely titilated. The tall, comely Minnesotan was by far the most attractive male guest

in residence.

"Yah," he said in that charming land-o'-lakes accent. "I was wondering if you might have a county map we could borrow."

This certainly piqued my interest, but before somebody peeked into the downstairs hall, we needed to relocate to a more

public spot. To be caught standing just outside my bedroom with a handsome man was one way to put a feather in my prayer cap,

but it would ruin my reputation. Folks might start expecting me to wear fuchsia and coral. Prudently I shepherded him into the

lobby.

"Yes, I do happen to have a county map - and a very detailed one at that - but why, may I ask, do you want to borrow it? Are

you planning to join the search party? If you are, you needn't worry about getting lost. That's Buffalo Mountain in the distance

across the road, and Stucky Ridge is behind us. Slave Creek runs right in between and passes just on the eastern side of Hernia.

The PennDutch is less than five miles north of the center of town."

"Thanks for the pointers. I'm sure they'll come in useful."

"You still haven't answered my question. Why do you need the map?"

He smiled, revealing a few wispy cobwebs clinging to the overhead light. "The guys and I like to play these silly little games.

Reconnaissance missions, strategy maneuvers-that sort of thing. A good map helps with the planning."

"I see. So, you weren't planning to help with the search?"

"Actually, we'd like to incorporate it into our war games."

I flinched. "Please, no three-letter words in this house."

"Excuse me?"

"You see, we're pacifists and - oh, never mind. I'll get you the map right after breakfast."

"Thank you. That's awfully kind of you. May I please ask one more favor?"

"Ask away."

"About the map - could we keep it a secret from the others?"

"But why? That wouldn't be fair, would it?"

A second smiled exposed the dust bunnies in the far comers of the lobby. "That's exactly why."

"I don't get it."

"You see, part of the game is to outsmart the other players. I bet none of them have thought to ask you for a map, have

they?"

"You're right about that." I grinned, but genetics has determined that I have yuppie yellow teeth. I couldn't light up a jack-o-

lantern on the dark side of the moon.

"So, you won't say anything, will you?"

"These lips are sealed, dear." I meant it, of course, but I kept my fingers crossed behind my back just to be on the safe side.

They say that all is fair in love and you-know-what, and that being the case, I didn't want to put my soul in jeopardy in case an

even smarter player decided to grease my palms with the color of nature.

Alas, no one offered to even touch my palms, much less grease them. Perhaps they thought the grease Sam served up with

breakfast was enough. The man should have stuck to his menu and served SPAM® as the only meat, but oh no, in a

grandstanding effort to secure Freni ' s job for himself, my busy-bee butler plied my guests with platters of thick slabs of bacon,

sausage patties, sausage links, and generous slabs of fried scrapple.

"Hey, what's this stuff?" Frizzy-haired Sandy Hart jabbed a wedge of scrapple with a fork that had already been licked.

"That's scrapple, dear."

"What's that?"

"It's ground liver pudding cooked with corn meal and flour and then fried."

"Yuck. And you have the nerve to charge us big bucks for that?"

I groaned behind the privacy of my napkin. Now I had a manic on my hands. If she didn't put a lid on it real soon, one of us

was going to be very depressed.

"It's authentic, dear. The Amish eat it all the time."

"Big deal. I don't want to do everything the Amish do, just the fun stuff."

"And what would that be?"

"Go to barn-raisings and quilting bees. That kind of thing."

"You just. missed a barn-raising, dear." Much to my surprise, my eyes had filled with tears. The old barn had seen many

good times - a couple of murders and an ill-fated wedding notwithstanding.

"And buggy rides. The brochure you sent had a buggy on the front, but you don't even have one, do you? Now that's false

advertising, if you ask me."

"Nobody did, hon," Bob said gently.

Sandy turned on her husband like a pit bull on its handler. "Hey, whose side are you on?"

"Yours, hon."

"No, you're not. I can tell by the way you look at her that you've got a thing for her, don't you!"

"Sandy!”

"Well, you do! And don't lie about this one, Robert. I know all about that bimbo of yours back in Tulsa."

"Bimbo? What bimbo?"

"Megan. You know, your so-called ex-secretary. The one who worked for you for fifteen years in the dealership. The one you

called your teammate."

Teammate? I made a quick dab at my eyes with a comer of my napkin. One of the advantages of not wearing makeup is that

there's nothing to run or smear. Unfortunately, when I wake up in the morning, that's as good as I'll look all day.

I jabbed at Bob with my fork. Of course I was careful not to actually touch him, because I had yet to complete my meal.

"You have a lot of nerve to suggest we'd make good teammates."

Sandy's eyes assumed the size of Sam's flapjacks. "He did?"

"He did."

Surely the swill that Sandy swore would have made a sailor swoon. I did my Christian duty and jabbed at her. Unfortunately I

miscalculated the distance, and a tip of one tine brushed her sleeve.

Sandy shrieked, and swore again. This time the word lawsuit reared its ugly head.

"Sorry, dear, it was an accident." She turned to the others. "Y'all are my witnesses. This crazy woman stabbed me."

"Don't be calling the kettle black, dear," I said calmly. "And besides, it's him you're mad at, not me."

"Nah, my little Bobby's bimbos don't really bother me, but this" - she rubbed her elbow - "really hurts."