I’d left Little Freni at home, which was just as well. The Masts never had any children, but they seemed to have every kind of animal imaginable. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t live on a farm either, but a double lot on the west side of Hernia. Alas, our zoning laws are lax. The Masts had a llama, three goats, and a miniature horse that barely came up to my knees. That was just for starters. In order to reach the front door, I had to negotiate my way through a pack of panting pooches, a bevy of bickering bantams, and a gaggle of garrulous geese. There were lesser creatures as well, and I fear I may have stepped on a few, if the squeaks and hisses (and occasional crunch) were any indication. I didn’t dare to look down. I hate seeing a perfectly good pair of shoes ruined. It was no wonder Melvin foisted the job on me.
At any rate, Joseph didn’t answer the door when I knocked, so I trudged around to the rear of the house. The man was a carpenter—a very good one, I hear— and sure enough he was in his shop busily sanding a curved piece of wood. He was, of course, not alone. A fourth goat perched on a stool next to the workbench and regarded me with surprisingly human and somewhat lustful eyes, and in the corner a brightly colored parrot hung upside-down from a wooden bar.
“Hello,” I said cheerily. “I’m Magdalena Yoder. Remember me?”
“Yup.” Joseph, a stout man with red hair, a galaxy of freckles, and wire-rim glasses, hadn’t even bothered to look up from his work.
“I’d like to express my condolences again, if I may. Your wife was certainly one of a kind, and I’m sure you miss her a great deal.”
“Yup.”
I cast about for a way to ease into my investigation. “Nice day, isn’t it?”
“Yup.”
“But we could always use more rain.”
“Yup.”
“So what is that you’re building there?” I pointed pointlessly at the work in progress. “An ark?”
“Nope.”
“Say, Joseph—I hope you don’t mind me calling you that—I didn’t really know your wife all that well, but I just wanted to say she was—uh, well, she was exceptional.”
“Yup.”
“One of a kind, you might say.”
“Yup.”
I was obviously not thinking fast on my feet. It was time to assume a position more conducive to intracranial activity.
“Mind if I sit?”
“Nope.”
“I was talking to the goat.”
Joseph grunted.
I turned to the beast. “Now be a dear and hop off that stool. You have four feet to my two.”
The goat grunted.
“Move it, Billy!”
“Name’s Amanda,” Joseph said.
“Wow, a multisyllabic word!” I slapped my own cheek—gently of course. “So it’s a she?”
He nodded. “Nubian nanny.”
“How original.” Joseph grunted again.
Clearly the pleasantries were over. It was time to get down to business. Quite justifiably I gave the goat a gentle push.
Amanda was not so polite. She butted my bosom with her knobby head, and I nearly fell over backward. The thud of bone hitting bone was sickening.
Now I know there are some who might think that a mature woman should let a rude ruminant remain roosting. I, however, firmly believe that the Good Lord intends us to use our attributes to the best of our individual abilities. Having said that, I don’t mind sharing that I backed up ten paces, set my purse carefully down on the sawdust-littered floor, lowered my head, and charged the recalcitrant nanny.
I may be skinny, but I outweighed the goat. Amanda flew through the air with the greatest of ease, knocking the parrot off her wooden trapeze. The parrot squawked as she fluttered to the floor, stirring a great cloud of sawdust.
“Darn!” I said, which is as bad as I can swear. “Now my purse is all dirty.”
At first I thought the parrot was laughing at me. It could not have been the goat, because as soon as Amanda hit the floor of the workshop, she bolted in a bleating blur. Then slowly I realized the high-pitched laugh was coming from Joseph Mast, the recently bereaved husband.
“What’s so funny!” I demanded, arms akimbo. That posture happens to be a distinctly un-Mennonite one, but I didn’t care. I was in an English frame of mind.
Joseph laid down his sandpaper. “You are what’s so funny! No one’s ever gotten the best of Amanda before.”
I stared at the man.
“Sit down,” he said, nodding at the vacated stool. “You’ve earned the right to sit there.”
I sat. “So you can talk?”
He laughed again. “It’s true that I’m shy around strangers. And most folks are strangers. But any woman who can put Amanda in her place is no stranger to me.” I eyed the parrot, who was waddling through the dust, headed in my direction. “Does she bite?”
“It’s a he. His name is Benedict, and he’s a scarlet macaw. And yes, Benny could snap your finger in half like it was a carrot stick.” Joseph reached down and, extending his own, apparently impervious finger, invited the parrot to hop on.
“Aren’t you afraid he’s going to hurt you?”
“He could. But I got him as a fledgling and hand-weaned him. Benedict and I have been buddies for twenty-two years.”
“That long?” I asked incredulously.
He lifted the parrot back up to his swinging perch. “Macaws can live to be one hundred. Now Amanda, she’s the amazing one. She’s lived twice as long as your average goat.”
“Oh great, make me feel guilty. Ousting a geriatric goat no longer seems like such a remarkable feat.”
“Well, it is in her case. She defines the word ‘stubborn.’ You see, my wife, Lizzie”—he paused to wipe away a tear—“never had any children. I guess you might say we filled the void with animals. Anyway, Amanda was our very first pet. Next thing we knew our little family was growing by leaps and bounds.” “Pun intended, I’m sure.”
He grinned. “I’m afraid not. At any rate, it was Lizzie’s idea to name the animals starting with the first letter of the alphabet. You know, like they do hurricanes.”
“Good heavens! Have you made it to Z?”
“Twice. Zeek—that’s with two E’s—is a French poodle. You may have met him coming around the yard. And Zelda, well, she’s a giant Amazon dung beetle we bought through a mail-order catalogue. She helps keep the place clean.”
I remembered the crunch underfoot. “Not anymore.” He raised a sparse red brow above the wire frames. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. Mr. Mast—”
“Please call me Joe.”
“Joe then. I’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”
He nodded. “Our dearly beloved chief of police, Melvin Stoltzfus, sent you, didn’t he?”
“How did you know?”
“Well, you didn’t come carrying a cake or a pie, and everyone knows you help out Melvin when he gets stumped.”
I flushed with pride. “Do they?”
“Don’t get me wrong. Most folks don’t hold it against you.”
“You mean some do?” I wailed.
He had the grace to smile kindly. “Very few. Everyone knows the man is, well, how should I put this kindly—”
“A sandwich short of a picnic?”
“That analogy will do. It’s common knowledge he was butted in the head when he tried to milk a billy goat. Apparently his noggin isn’t as tough as yours.”
“Bull!”
He looked surprised.
“It was a bull he tried to milk, not a goat. And he was kicked in the head.”
“Is that so? Well, that would still do the trick, wouldn’t it?”
I nodded in agreement. “So, Joe, may I start with the questions?”
He held up a callused hand. “Yup, but I can save you a whole lot of time. If you’re thinking my Lizzie’s death was no accident, you’re right. What’s more, I know exactly who killed her, and why.”
“You do?”
“Yup. It was the neighbors.”
“Your neighbors?”
“Amish,” he said with surprising vehemence.
“What is that supposed to mean? Your ancestors were Amish, for Pete’s sake.”
“Yup. But what I mean is the Keims have ten children. All sons.”
“So?”
“Rumschpringe. You know what that is?”
“Yes, I do, but—”
“The oldest two Keim boys are of that age. Hellions on earth, if you’ll forgive my language.”
“Just barely, dear. Please elaborate.”
“I can’t keep their names straight, but the two older ones have a car, a dilapidated bright yellow Buick they keep hidden behind a haystack up in the north forty. Anyway, they tear around in that thing at night and don’t give a damn who or what they hit.”
“Now that’s too much.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I meant your language, dear.”
“Sorry. I was in the army.”
My eyes widened. Not many Mennonites serve in the armed forces. Both we and the Amish have a centuries-old tradition of being pacifists. This is based directly on scripture, like Matthew, chapter five, verse thirty-nine: “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other.”
It is this staunch belief that set the stage for the massacre of some of my ancestors in 1750. True, my great-great-great-grandmother, Mrs. Jacob Hochstetler, wasn’t following the Lord’s teachings when she refused water to a hunting party of Delaware Indians at the height of the French and Indian War. But when the homestead was attacked that night, it was to my ancestors’ credit that they refused to fight back. Granny Hochstetler was stabbed and scalped, an infant daughter scalped as well, and Jacob and two sons were taken hostage.
At any rate, a Mennonite with army credentials is a rare beast. “Were you drafted?” I asked.
“Yup, it was the Vietnam War. I could have gotten a deferment, but some of my buddies from high school were getting drafted, and it didn’t seem right for me to get out of serving when I wasn’t really a pacifist.”
“You weren’t?”
“Not then. Not at eighteen.”
“Are you now?”
He shrugged. “That depends on the situation—so I guess the answer is ‘no.’ ”
That explained why Joseph Mast seldom darkened the door of Beechy Grove Mennonite Church. I took a deep breath and asked a question that was none of my business, but one which I’d been dying to ask.
“Did you ever kill anyone? In Vietnam, I mean.”
Red lashes blinked. “Yup.”
I waited patiently for him to expound. When he didn’t, I reluctantly got back to business.
“So, we were talking about the Keim kids. You said they don’t care who or what they hit with that old jalopy of theirs. What exactly did you mean by that? Have they tried to hit you?”
“Nope. But they ran over Queequeg.”
“Who?”
“Our pot-bellied Vietnamese pig.”
“Oh.”
“And Dora.”
“Dora!” The parrot’s sharp voice made me jump. “Watch out for Dora!”
Joseph smiled sadly. “Dora was an albino ferret. Friendliest thing you could ever hope to meet, although Benedict hated her. I think he thought Dora wanted him for lunch. Anyway, Dora would crawl right up your pants leg if you let her.”
I shuddered. “Did the Keims apologize? Did they offer to pay for replacements?”
Joseph picked up the sandpaper and resumed sanding with vigor. “You can’t replace friends.”
I thought of Little Freni. Big Freni too.
“You’re right,” I said. “That was insensitive of me. But did they at least offer to compensate you for new animals?”
“Nope.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Yup.”
“Oh no,” I wailed, “we’re not back to single syllables, are we?”
He grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. I tend to shut down when I feel threatened. It’s a Nam thing.”
“Moi? Threatening?”
“Like I said, Miss Yoder, you have a reputation.”
I smiled proudly, then gave myself a mental slap. “Please, call me Magdalena. Now, if you don’t mind telling me, what did you do after they killed Dora?”
“Dora,” the stupid parrot squawked. “Dora lunch. Dora lunch. Dora lunch.”
Joseph made a futile attempt to stare his bird into silence. Finally he gave up and turned to me.
“I scattered nails on the dirt road that leads up to their house. The driveway, if you want to call it that.”
I gasped. “For shame! You could cripple their horses. And I thought you liked animals!”
“I do. The horses weren’t ever in any danger. I sprinkled the nails along the sides of the road. The horses trot down the middle. Anyway, it didn’t do any damn good. They changed tires a couple of times, then they just took to driving across the fields.” He smiled. “So, I resorted to a more direct method.”
“What could that be?” I braced myself for the answer.
“I shot their tires.”
“You what?”
“Of course they weren’t in the car at the time. But they knew I did it. They even told their beloved father that I’d taken potshots at them. Only they didn’t bother to tell him about the car.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“Apparently not. The old man—Benjamin—came over, and he was as mad as I’ve seen an Amish man get. He wanted me to apologize to his sons for shooting at them. I started to tell him about the car and what his boys had done to my animals, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. He just kept screaming at me in Pennsylvania Dutch. To tell you the truth, Miss Yoder, it was all I could do not to shoot at him.”
I pondered this for a couple of minutes while he sanded. It is, of course, quite easy to see the sins of others. And given that I still have almost perfect vision, I occasionally see some of my own. In the end I decided that chastising the carpenter wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
“And Lizzie?” I asked calmly. “What were her relations like with the neighbors?”
Joseph blinked, and then wiped his eyes on the back of a freckled hand. “Lizzie was a saint. She baked them a beautiful cake and took it straight over.”
I stifled an impulse to snicker. “And?”
“Well, that’s what mystifies me. They cut a couple of slices and sent the rest back with one of the young ones.”
“Ouch.”
He gave me an odd look.
“What I meant is, that was a very rude gesture on their part.”
“Magdalena rude!” the parrot trilled. “Magdalena very rude on their part.”
The macaw was no match for my glare. He sidestepped to the far end of his perch, tucked his head under his wing, and feigned sleep. Come to think of it, my pseudo-ex-husband often did the same thing.
“Sorry about that,” Joseph said. He was actually blushing.
“No problem. Look, you said earlier that the Keims killed Lizzie. Did you mean that literally?”
He nodded. “Yup. It’s a gut feeling, and I’m seldom wrong about those. Sometimes in Nam that’s all that kept me alive.”
“I see. Joe,” I said to put him at ease, “the day before your Lizzie died—”
“She was murdered.”
“Yes, but the day before that, did she receive a threatening letter in the mail?”
The sparse red brows met briefly while he frowned. “Thelma Hershberger call you?”
“She paid me a visit. Is it true?”
“The woman’s a gossip and a liar. Lizzie never got a letter like that. She would have told me. Magdalena,” he said, using my given name for the first time, “don’t let that woman’s lies distract you. Lizzie’s killers live right next door.”
His tone convinced me he was telling the truth. As he saw it. But since we all know there are three sides to every story—mine, yours, and God’s—I wasn’t convinced of his Amish neighbor’s guilt.
“I know you believe the Keims killed your wife,” I said gently, “but it doesn’t make sense. They’re pacifists.”
Joseph put the wood and sandpaper carefully down. His blue eyes glittered through the dusty lenses.
“I already told you why. It’s because I shot their tires.”
“But that’s ridic—” I stopped myself just in time. “Well, how do you think they did it?”
“Booby traps,” he said. “They’re all over the place. Got to watch your step, you know. The war may be over, but Charlie’s still got it in for you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Animals. Get lots of animals. They step on the mines first.”
I realized, sadly, that there was little else to learn from Joseph Mast. At least not on that occasion. Perhaps a quick visit to the Keims was in order. It was almost five o’clock. A prudent Magdalena would have waited until the next day. An amorous Magdalena would have driven straight home, taken a scented bubble bath, and put on her best broadcloth dress and a fresh white prayer cap. But alas, I am who I am. That is to say, I carefully navigated the menagerie—took no additional lives (at least none that I am aware of)—and drove to the adjacent farm.
There are many varieties of Amish, the subtleties of which would not be readily apparent to the outsider. But having grown up surrounded by Amish, and myself belonging to a denomination with many divisions, I am able to pick out the differences quite readily. The Benjamin Keim family belongs to the most conservative group of Amish in this part of the state.
The South Fork Amish, as this congregation is known, forbid their members the use of electric- and gas-powered energy sources. Muscle power, both animal and human, is how the Keims get their chores done. Since it was probably milking time, I knew Benjamin and the majority of his sons would be in the barn, their heads pressed up against cows, their fingers busily squeezing the teats of gentle Jerseys.
Therefore, I headed straight for the back door of the house.