No Use Dying Over Spilled Milk (12 page)

“Well, to be honest, just at the graveside,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind, but Susannah and I didn’t make it to the funeral itself.”

Sarah smiled wanly. “But you saw all the people who came, didn’t you? Anyway, Magdalena, strange accidents happen all the time.”

“I’ll say,” Susannah said helpfully. “I dated a guy once whose brother got his finger caught in the coin return of the vending machine. It was on a day even colder than this, and before help could come he had frozen solid. Like a popsicle. Only he had his clothes on, of course.” She ignored my kick. “They had to cut his finger off to separate him from the machine, and then wouldn’t you know they went off and forgot about it. Well, on the first really warm day that finger came popping out when a little old lady put in too much change to buy herself a Snickers bar. At the sight of the finger she fainted and—”

It wasn’t the first time I’d put a hand over Susannah’s mouth, but it was the first time she didn’t try to bite me. Maybe there is hope for my sister after all.

“So you see,” Sarah said stalwartly, “the sheriff wrote it up as an accident and there didn’t have to be an investigation. It has all been taken care of.”

“I see,” I said. But I didn’t. My handy little murder theory involving Susannah’s nefarious new boyfriend now had a hole in it big enough for a real cow to wander through. Even if Danny Hem, or his goons, had somehow been involved in the drowning, they couldn’t be blamed for Yost Yoder’s suddenly going bonkers and charging out into the night on all fours. And why would they have bothered to take off his clothes?

It was time to go, because suddenly I had other fish to fry. I am proud to say that both Susannah and I hugged our cousin and told her she would be in our prayers. If Sarah minded being included in Susannah’s Presbyterian prayers, she made no indication. We also thanked her for the hot cocoa and complimented her on her bread-making skills. Already the covered loaves had risen above the edges of the pans. I had the feeling that Sarah Yoder was going to be all right.

“Why didn’t you tell me Melvin had a cousin here?” Susannah demanded as soon as we got in the car. “Is he cute?”

Wisely I started the car and drove out on the highway before answering. “As cute as Melvin,” I said, without adding to the length of my Yoder nose.

“Dreamy,” Susannah sighed.

I bit my tongue. My sister believes that anyone who prefers to stand when visiting the outhouse rates an automatic ten on a scale of ten. Uniforms, titles, and fat wallets all add extra points, of course, so Marvin, being a sheriff, probably rated at least a fifteen, which somehow makes sense to her.

“But of course I wouldn’t have time to see him anyway, at least not tonight. I mean, we do have our dinner with Danny.”

“Say what?” I braked hard enough for Susannah to slam against her shoulder belt, thereby somewhat constricting Shnookums. I assure you that result was quite accidental.

After Susannah had finished comforting the mashed mongrel, and properly chiding me, she remembered my question.

“Ah, tonight,” she chortled. “Mags, you will be happy to know that you don’t have to sit around with the Troyers looking at four walls. I told Danny all about you, and he wants to meet you. In fact, he wants to take us out to dinner. At the fanciest restaurant in Canton. Cher something.”

“That’s Cher Bono,” I said. I may not listen to popular music, but I do pick up on things now and then. To hear Susannah talk, you’d think I live in a cave.

Susannah howled cruelly. “Sonny and Cher broke up years ago. Probably before I was born. The restaurant I’m talking about is French.”

“I don’t care if it’s Spanish,” I said. “What makes you think I’m going there with you and that criminal? Not after what he did to poor Elsie Bontrager. Or haven’t you heard?”

“Oh, that!” Susannah had the nerve to laugh. “All he did was compliment the girl on her eyes. Supposedly they are very blue. Since when did that become a crime?”

I pulled the car over to the side of the road but continued to grip the wheel tightly. “That’s certainly not what I heard, Susannah. And Elsie Bontrager aside, this boyfriend of yours has been nothing but trouble for the Amish ever since he inherited his uncle’s business.”

She whirled in her seat, and if the mutt got mashed then it was her fault. “How so? These are just more vicious rumors.”

I reminded myself to tread slowly. Speak now and pay later has not always been a pleasant philosophy.

“I have it from a good source that Danny Hem started taking shortcuts the moment he took over Daisybell Dairies. Eventually the Amish who supplied his milk had no choice but to quit supplying him and start up their own cooperative. Of course, no sooner had they got started on their own than two of the co-op leaders died under suspicious circumstances. Now the Amish are so scared they’re thinking of moving away from the area altogether.”

“Says who?”

“I can’t reveal my source, dear. But I am positive he wouldn’t lie.”

“So it’s a man?”

“Not necessarily. As a matter of fact, it’s a woman.” I ignored the twitching in my nose, since it was for a good cause. “And she says that your boyfriend, Danny Hem, even issued what could be construed as a threat.”

Susannah laughed. “Danny? Threaten somebody?”

I gave her a look that, if harnessed, could have turned milk into aged cheese overnight. “I fail to see the humor here. You could be dating a murderer, you know.”

Susannah yowled.

“But come to think of it,” I said, thinking aloud, “going out to dinner tonight might be exactly the right thing to do. It’ll give me a chance—” I caught myself before I went too far. It had been foolish of me to say that much.

Susannah was laughing far too hard to hear me.

An hour later Susannah was still laughing.

“I am not your mother,” I said. “If I’d known you were going to pass me off as Mama, I would have stayed home.”

The silver Mercedes had just pulled up in front of the Troyers’ house, and I suppose I could have balked then and refused to go along with my sister’s game. However, there was Lizzie’s supper to consider. The zucchini fritters I could handle, but the sardine lasagna was asking too much. Better to play mother to my sister and dine with a criminal than to dine on Lizzie’s cooking, which was a crime in itself.

“I only told him that because at first he thought I was too young to date and wanted to ask my mother for permission.” Susannah laughed gaily. “When he dropped me off last night he said we would only go out again if I brought my dear, sweet mother along.”

“Yeah, right.” Susannah is on the shady side of thirty. So shady that even mushrooms can’t grow there. Danny Hem was either blind as a bat, in which case he shouldn’t be driving, or Susannah was even more gullible than I thought—in which case I have been wrong to tease her all these years.

“So, you’re coming, and you’re going to pretend to be Mama?” Susannah begged.

I sighed deeply and spun my eyes around a couple of times. It was a small price for Susannah to pay for all the joy I was about to give her.

“All right, I’m coming. And I won’t contradict you if you refer to me as your mother, but don’t expect me to come right out and say it.”

“Love you, Mags!” Susannah gave me a quick squeeze.

I was understandably embarrassed by such sentimentality. “But I’m not going to raise your allowance, you know.”

“ ’Course not.” Susannah reached to hug me again, but I deftly dodged her and hurried to open the door.

It was wise to intercept Danny before he had a chance to knock. The Troyers knew we were spending the evening with him, but there was no point in rubbing their noses in our strange English ways. A silver Mercedes and a grown man in ten pounds of gold chains and a full-length fur coat (some of the skins still claimed their heads) were not the best cross-cultural ambassadors I could imagine. Susannah and I were probably more than enough for them to handle as it was.

“Ah, it’s Chez,” I said, “not Cher. Chez Normandy.”

“Same thing,” Susannah said. She snuggled deeper into Danny’s slain beasts. With Shnookums snuggled in her bosom, she should have felt deep shame.

It had been a quiet ride from Farmersburg to Canton. Every time Danny tried to speak—usually to me—Susannah pelted him with kisses, so any extended conversation would have been perilous to our lives. As a consequence I knew nothing more about Danny after the hour ride than I had before except that he belonged to AAA and had had his oil changed three weeks prior. These things I discovered by discreetly rummaging through the glove compartment. That is a driver’s prerogative, you know.

“Park here, darling,” Danny directed.

I pulled the sleek silver car into the reserved spot and turned off the engine. One could hardly tell the difference. It had been a joy to drive, really, once I’d gotten over the shock that I was the designated driver.

“He only drinks a little bit,” Susannah whispered, just as I’d opened the door to the Troyer house.

What she neglected to say was that he drank a little bit all the time. The menagerie of minks masked a flotilla of flasks. Come to think of it, the poor animals were probably not dead, just stupefied by the fumes engulfing them. That Susannah had managed to make it to and from Canton the night before was a testimony to her guardian angel. That overworked being deserves to retire permanently as soon as Susannah’s number is called.

Money does indeed speak, and the amount of cash Danny Hem flashed around that night had a very loud voice. The staff of the Chez Normandy snapped to attention the minute we walked in the door and didn’t stop snapping the entire evening. Not at us, of course, but at each other. Money can make people very tense, you know.

As the proprietress of a successful inn I consider myself somewhat of an expert on the restaurant trade, so I feel entitled to comment on what I observed at Chez Normandy. First of all, the tables were far too small. Putting fine white linen cloths bordered in Flemish lace on something the size of a TV table is more than just foolish, it’s begging for spills. As for the flocked velvet wallpaper in the gold fleur-de-lis pattern, it made the place look cheap. And whoever heard of a fountain in the middle of a restaurant, much less an obscene one of a boy urinating champagne?

“Why, I certainly don’t get fifty dollars just for showing my guests to their table,” I felt compelled to say. Okay, so the PennDutch has only one very long table in its dining room, but I do seat the guests, and I have yet to receive a tip.

Of course, I would have seated my guests differently as well. I know that the table was small, but there was no reason to seat Danny Hem between Susannah and me. He was a virtual stranger to me, after all. Although I must say, once shed of the pile of pelts he looked rather appealing. Not as a boyfriend, mind you, but as a nephew perhaps. A very young nephew, since he couldn’t have been a day over twenty.

“Actually, I’m thirty-six,” he said, when asked.

“Months?”

He laughed pleasantly and took a sip of champagne. I do not believe in drinking, but if I ever faltered from the straight and narrow and became a worldly Presbyterian, like Susannah, I might be tempted to try a tonic now and then for cosmetic purposes. Apparently alcohol can preserve more than bug specimens in ajar.

“Plastic surgery,” Danny volunteered, as if reading my mind. “Two eyelifts, a chin tuck, a face peel, and collagen injections to fill all the cracks. Hurts like hell when you do it, but does wonders for your self-image.”

“Mama looks just fine the way she is, don’t you think?” Susannah asked sweetly.

I gave her a swift but sweet little kick under the Flemish lace.

“Your mother doesn’t look a day older than you,” Danny said. “In fact, you two could be twin sisters.”

Susannah choked on the champagne she shouldn’t have been drinking. “Well, that’s because she isn’t my mother after all. Mags is my sister, but she’s old enough to be my mother. I just said she was my mother as a joke.” My own flesh and blood winked wickedly at me.

“Your sister, eh?” Danny’s wink was beyond wicked since it was accompanied by a hand on my knee. That table, as I said, was far too small.

“And what about yourself?” I asked Danny. “Do you have any surviving siblings?”

My hand was now under the table as well. Unlike his, mine gripped a fork.

Danny drooled. “Let’s not talk about me, sweetheart. You sisters into a little swinging?”

Unfortunately, since I couldn’t see under the table, it took me two tries to dispatch the prick. This called for great stoicism on my part, if I must say so myself. As for Danny, he was an even greater stoic, or else the booze blocked the brunt of his pain. He barely grunted, but the hand was immediately removed from my knee. Susannah, I’m sure, didn’t suspect a thing.

“Miss, could I please have a clean fork?” I remembered to ask when the waitress came to take our orders.

The waitress cheerfully brought me a clean fork, so I knew right off she wasn’t French. She was, in fact, a young American gal named Tina, with one brown eye and one blue eye, and very friendly. It was her first day there, she said, would we cut her some slack? We all agreed, most of all Danny Hem, who was becoming slacker by the moment.