"What information? Melvin, you've known me all my life."

"Name?"

"You already know that!"

Melvin was as persistent as a sweat fly in August. "Name?"

"Oh, all right. Magdalena Yoder."

"Middle name?"

Won't an initial do?" It's bad enough that my mother named me after a packet of flower seeds. She could at least have nixed the Latin.

"Middle name?"

"Portulaca. But breathe that to a single soul and "

"Age?"

"Thirty-nine."

"Age?"

"Forty-three. But what does this have to do with my being shot at?"

"s.e.x?"

"Never! I mean it's none of your business."

"s.e.x?" After Melvin had garnered all my personal statistics, except for my bra and shoe size (which are not the same, no matter what Freni says), he finally let me tell him about the incident.

"You don't allow hunting on your land, do you?" he interrupted me at one point.

"Of course not."

"Then that couldn't have been a hunter on your land."

"How's that?"

Melvin was on a roll. "And you don't know why anyone would want to kill you, do you?"

"To spare me these questions?"

He began to rub his hands together rhythmically. "If you don't know why someone would want to kill you, then there probably wasn't anyone trying to kill you. And we know it wasn't a hunter. So, either you are mistaken about being shot at or you are lying to me, Magdalena, and just wasting my time." He rolled his huge eyes into position and gazed up at me like a monstrous mantis. "And I know you don't lie, Magdalena Yoder. Do you?"

"You forgot Portulaca."

"Do you?"

There was no stopping such persistence. I decided to get out of there before he devoured me. "I don't suppose you know the name of the hotel Chief Myers is staying at in Niagara Falls, do you?"

Melvin turned his head slowly to an impossible angle. Quite possibly he was trying to point with his chin. "The sign on this desk says 'Melvin Stoltzfus.' That's me. I'm in charge while the Chiefs away. Got any more questions?"

"No, so in that case I guess I'll just be going. Thanks for everything.

The bulging blue-gray eyes seemed to have focused on me before his head had fully turned back into position. "It's quite all right, Magdalena, but next time try not to let your imagination get the best of you."

"Bull!" I said. That said it all.

14.

Susannah and Shnook.u.ms were in the kitchen when I returned. I didn't actually see Shnook.u.ms, but since he is never a dog's breath away from her, I knew he was there. Susannah, at least, appeared to be making toast and coffee.

"What's the matter? Can't sleep anymore?" I asked pleasantly enough.

Susannah rolled her eyes, which for her is a fairly tolerant gesture. "I am not the lazy thing you think I am, Mags. 'I've been up for at least forty-five minutes, doing my nails."

A quick glance at the wall clock told me it was seven minutes till one. Just as I'd thought. Only sinners are capable of sleeping past noon.

"And besides which," she continued, "I'm working right now. I'm making lunch for Her Highness."

"What? Is Jeanette back already?"

"Not that Her Highness. Mrs. Ream."

"Lydia came back already?"

Susannah opened the fridge and got out some cottage cheese and hard-boiled eggs. "She never left in the first place. Scared me to death when I saw her. I was coming downstairs for a Pepsi and Little Debbies when I ran into her on the stairs. We both nearly fell down those d.a.m.ned stairs and broke our necks we were so frightened."

"Susannah!"

Well, do you want to hear the juicy details, or what?"

I sold out my principles for the juicy details. "Do tell."

Susannah talked while she fixed Lydia's plate. "I asked Mrs. Ream why she was back already and she told me she'd never left. Said she hadn't been feeling so well after breakfast, a stomach thing, and thought she should stick close to the house. She also said she'd started to feel a little better and had gone out for a short walk. Just to look at the barn and stuff. Only I don't think that's the whole truth."

What do you mean?" I have to hand it to Susannah. She attracts interesting bits of news like black wool attracts lint.

Well, for one thing, there's that fight she had with her husband this morning. I think it's Garrett, not diarrhea, that kept her home. Although, how can you tell the difference?"

"Susannah?"

Well, you know what I mean." She poured coffee from the percolator into a small serving pot. "Anyway, after I recovered from shock on the stairs, I noticed there were some pine needles caught in her hair." Susannah paused and waited for me to say something.

Eventually I obliged. "So?"

"So! Mags, the only pine trees we've got on the farm are back in the woods. It's all maples up by the house, and there aren't any trees by the barn. So don't you think the woods is a wee bit far to go if you've got the runs?"

"You've got a point," I said excitedly. "And if Lydia was ill the woods, she might have seen someone, or at least could verify that shots had been fired."

Susannah put a little pot of homemade boysenberry jam and a salt and pepper set on the tray. "Except that she came back from her walk several hours after you claimed you were shot at."

"Not claimed was!"

"All right, was. My point is that she couldn't have heard the shots or seen anyone, because she wasn't even in the woods then."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Say, you're not the only one with news. Guess who I saw in town?"

"Your old boyfriend, Sam?" Susannah pointed to the bags of produce that I still had not bothered to put away. After all, there was no hurry. How limp can Sam's bok choy get?

"That's not who I mean. I saw" I paused for dramatic effect "Melvin Stoltzfus!"

"Our new acting Police Chief."

"You knew?"

"It was in the paper, Mags. You really ought to get more in touch with the world."

"That's not fair! I read."

"Yeah, books. But not important stuff. Isn't Melvin cute?"

"Cute? You think Melvin Stoltzfus is cute?"

"You're always too hard on people, Magdalena. You're far too picky. Even Mama used to say so. Melvin's got the most adorable eyes. You know bedroom eyes they call them."

"I wouldn't think there'd be room for his eyes in my bed," I said, perhaps cruelly.

"There you go! Running people down. That's why there's never been anybody in your bed, Magdalena. And probably never will be."

"That's not true at all. I don't sleep with men because I'm not married. It's as simple as that. And even if I were to throw my morals to the wind and be a s.l.u.t, like some people I know, I wouldn't go to bed with someone who has to use his fingers to count to ten."

Susannah slammed some silverware down on the tray. "Melvin never got kicked by any d.a.m.ned cow. That story was just made up by Sarah Berkey because he jilted her."

"Bull."

"What?"

"Never mind, just take the tray up to Lydia." It's a hard lesson for me to learn, but if I bite my tongue hard enough, and think of Mama turning over in her grave, I can sometimes extricate myself from our arguments before it's too late.

"I'm gone!" shouted Susannah. Then, too studied to be an afterthought, she turned with the tray and gave me what I suppose she thought was a coy wink. "I almost forgot to tell you, Mags, but you had a phone call."

"I did not switch the prices on Sam's salad dressings," I said, perhaps a bit too defensively.

"Not Sam. This was from a man, a Jim something. Big Jim, I think it was. Anyway, he wouldn't leave a message, except that he'd call back sometime. And he called you doll!"

Susannah laughed like a blithering idiot and ran upstairs with the tray containing hot coffee. How is it that she managed to negotiate those impossibly steep stairs at high speed and not even spill a drop of java, whereas poor little Miss Brown ended up like a sack of ,.potatoes at their foot? A sack of mashed potatoes.

I decided not to dwell on that morbid subject any longer, nor did I particularly want to think about Jumbo Jim's call. My brief conversation with him had been far too much fun. If it involves a man, and is fun, it has got to be wrong, or so Mama always told me. When your mind starts to get too busy, or filled with unwelcome thoughts, the only way to clear it is to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Dirty hands, you can always wash. A dirty mind, however, is a first-cla.s.s ticket to h.e.l.l.

I left the groceries where they were and went out back to help Mose shovel out the henhouse. We do it twice a year, when the weather's not too cold, but cold enough so that it moderates the fumes from the acrid droppings. The fall rakings, which include a lot of straw, are spread over the vegetable patch, and come spring, it's tame enough to make a lovely fertilizer. The spring rakings go on the compost heap. By late summer they've mellowed enough to a.s.sist the fall crop.

Our chickens are range fed, which means they don't spend a lot of time in the henhouse, except at night, or to lay. Often there's no one at home when we shovel. There's something therapeutic, almost religious, about shoveling excrement in an empty henhouse twice a year. It's not only humbling, but in addition to cleaning the joint, I usually feel like my soul has been somehow cleansed as well. Of course, it may be just the fumes.

"Say, Mose," I began, once the job was done, "did you see Mrs. Ream, the Congressman's wife, taking a walk this morning?"

Mose shook his head. "I didn't see any of the English this morning."

'Well, that's strange, because Mrs. Ream told Susannah she went out for a walk by the barn after breakfast."

Mose took off his straw hat and wiped his forehead with his coat sleeve. "I didn't see any of the English," he repeated, "but there was someone out by the barn."

"You heard someone?"

"No. Matilda did." Matilda Holsteincoo is one of our two remaining cows. To hear Mose talk, you'd think they were the daughters he never had. What do you mean Matilda did?"

"She wouldn't let down her milk for the longest time. It makes her nervous, you know, if someone else is there."

What about Bertha? Was she nervous too?"

Mose knew I was teasing him, but as usual he never let on. "Bertha knows no shame. She gave even more than usual."

"That hussy!"

Mose smiled despite himself. Then his face darkened. "Magdalena, which one of the English does that car belong to?" He pointed to the asphalt-gray jalopy once owned by the deceased Miss Brown.

"Ah, that belonged to the woman who accidentally fell down our stairs. Heather Brown. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know much about cars, Magdalena, but that one's broken in back. Where you put stuff. I think it happened here."

"You mean the trunk?"

"That's what I mean."

We walked over to the car to take a closer look. Sure enough, the trunk lid was open. The evidence suggested that it had been forced. There were scratch marks around the keyhole, and along the bottom of the trunk lid there was a series of indentations. It would have been obvious even to Melvin's mother that someone had used a crowbar to force it open.

"What makes you think it happened here?"

"It didn't look like that yesterday."

"You sure?"