I waited until Melvin was quite done picking up the shells before I spoke again. “Now may I strip the bed?” I asked reasonably.
“Hell, no!” he nearly exploded. “There still may be more evidence.”
“Then you strip it yourself when you’re done,” I said calmly. I grabbed my still-moaning sister by the shoulders and steered her from the room.
Doc hung back a few minutes, then followed me. We headed downstairs to the parlor. "You know this guest well?” he asked.
“What?”
He gestured back at the room, occupied now only by Melvin. “The corpse, I mean. Did you know the lady well when she was alive?”
I shook my head. “Not really. Just two days. All I know about her is that she’s a vegetarian, and she was here to protest hunting season. Oh, and if the rumors are true, she’s the illegitimate daughter of the Congressman.”
"What Congressman?”
“Oops, sorry. Garrett Ream.”
“That young fart? Anyway, did you know if she was pregnant?”
“Linda? Pregnant?”
“Just a guess, like everything else, but maybe a good one. Of course we’ll have to wait until the autopsy comes back.”
I trusted Doc enough not even to bother asking why he suspected Linda was pregnant. But I asked him anyway.
Doc laughed, which, at his age, is likely to come out as a cackle. “Intuition, Magdalena. That and the fact that there was a bottle of prenatal vitamins on her night table. Although it’s possible, it isn’t likely that anyone who wasn’t pregnant would be taking them.”
“Well, I’ll be. Linda pregnant. But if that moron in there sees the pills, he’s liable to think she tried to commit suicide.”
“By swallowing vitamins?”
I reminded Doc about Melvin’s experience with the bull. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure even Melvin Stoltzfus couldn’t be that dumb. But then again, you have to be pretty stupid to get a story like that started in the first place.
Old Doc laughed until I thought he would have a coronary. “Unfortunately I don’t remember such an episode. But if it did happen, I’m sure Melvin was the one involved. Here,” he reached into his pocket and brought out the bottle of vitamins. “Even Melvin can’t misinterpret these if he doesn’t see them, Magdalena. I nabbed them when the fool was picking up all those sunflower seeds. No point in allowing him to muddy up the waters prematurely.”
“But Doc! Isn’t that illegal? Swiping evidence?”
“What evidence? No one is going to believe this young lady tried to kill herself by overdosing on a bottle of vitamins. No one, that is, except for young Melvin, who will eventually see the light anyway. So actually, I’m just speeding up the time it will take him to separate the evidence from the incidental. Incidentally, did you happen to notice that the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door was still facing out?”
“What ‘do not disturb’ sign? We don’t use those signs around here.”
“Yes, you do. Red letters, on a white background. About this big. Saw it myself. Plain as day.”
“Well, it isn’t ours.” I shook Susannah gently. “Did you notice a sign on the door when you first went in there?”
Susannah burst into tears and threw her arms around me. I hate it when someone does that. Even my own sister. My personal space is very important to me. Of course, Susannah didn’t notice my discomfort. “I shouldn’t have gone in there,” she wailed. “I should have started mopping right away, just like you said.”
“Nonsense,” I said comfortingly. “Your going after Shnookums’s binky had nothing to do with Linda’s death. Now was there, or was there not, a ‘do not disturb’ sign hanging on the door?”
Susannah nodded. “There was, Mags. But I swear I knocked first, before opening the door. I knocked real softly, too. I mean, I wouldn’t have gone in at all if there had been any kind of an answer.”
“Well, how do you like that? A bogus sign. You don’t suppose the killer—”
“Put the sign on the door so that no one would discover the young lady’s death for a long time, thereby giving him or herself extra time to get away?” old Doc finished for me.
“Does that mean that whenever the guests come back from the woods this afternoon, Mags, the killer will be the only one not to show up?” asked Susannah, with surprising sensibility.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Not necessarily, and probably not at all,” said old Doc.
“But you said—”
“I suggested it as a possibility, but I don’t think it’s at all likely. This killer’s too smart to let him or herself be identified by their absence. My guess is that whoever killed this young lady is pretty confident and plans to wait things out.”
“But then, why leave the sign?”
“That was just to make sure the poison had a chance to run its course before the victim was discovered. Even if the victim did make some noise, a sign on the door would probably keep people away. At least for a while. Most people are reluctant to investigate even very loud noises when there are ‘do not disturb’ signs on the doors.” I swear the old coot winked at me then.
Susannah laughed, far too bawdily. “You can say that again.”
I trust I didn’t blush. “Care for anything to eat?”
“Would I ever!” said Doc. He did, after all, live to eat. “But only if you make it from scratch. Who knows what the leftovers in your fridge contain.”
I laughed nervously. “Actually, there are no leftovers. At least from last night. Billy Dee, that’s one of the guests, said he and Lydia Ream, the Congressman’s wife, pitched everything out when the meal was over. They’re the ones who did the cleanup,” I explained.
Old Doc looked suddenly serious. “That might be your evidence, right there.”
“Billy Dee? Lydia Ream? I don’t think so. They’re the most likable pair in the bunch. I haven’t heard a negative word come out of Lydia’s mouth, and as for Billy Dee, he gets along with everybody, except maybe with Ms. Parker. But it wasn’t Ms. Parker who was poisoned, it was Linda McMahon.”
“That’s conjecture,” said Melvin, entering the room. “We won’t know what she died of until we get the lab report back.”
“Do we have to wait until then to see if she’s even dead?” I know I shouldn’t have said it, but I couldn’t help myself.
Doc chuckled, Susannah flushed, and Melvin just plain glared. Fortunately for his sake, I couldn’t see how Shnookums reacted.
“Well, some things are obvious,” I said.
Melvin drew himself up to his full height, which diminished the praying mantis image but made him look like a wide-eyed child playing grown-up. “When you assume,” he intoned, “you make me an ass out of you and me.”
“I do not allow obscene language in this house, Mr. Stoltzfus.”
“For chrissakes, Magdalena, he was only trying to make a point,” said my much misguided sister.
“Susannah Yoder! Mama would...”
“Entwhistle, Mags, and leave Mama out of this. What Melvin said is true. You’re always jumping to conclusions. And another thing, you’re always judging people. Always coming down on them with your own rigid standards. Like you’re the only one who’s right. Like what’s right for you has to be what’s right for everyone else. You’re always critical, you know? You’re too hard on people, Mags. Give us a break sometimes.”
Well, I didn’t have to just sit there and take that. “Doc, about lunch, why don’t we convene to the kitchen, where we’re not unwanted?”
“Good idea,” said Doc.
“Hey, we get to eat too,” said Susannah.
“Fine, then you go to the kitchen and make lunch.”
“You want to stay for lunch, honey?” Just when their relationship had had time to blossom to the honey stage was beyond me.
“Well,” drawled Melvin, “I do need to stay and question the suspects when they return. How about if you and I order in pizza?”
“Dreamy,” drooled Susannah.
I knew for a fact that poor Mama was going to get a lot of exercise that day. Hernia does not have a pizza parlor, and whatever it was Susannah and Melvin planned to do in Mama’s parlor had little, if anything, to do with lunch.
“Remember this is a Christian house, Susannah,” I admonished her futilely.
My sister feigned shock. “There you go again, Mags. Always jumping to conclusions.”
“At least it’s a decent form of exercise.”
“Too bad you can’t compare the two,” she countered cruelly.
I didn’t subject myself to any more of that. Instead I took my frustration out on fixing Doc the best lunch he’d had in seventeen years. At least that’s what he said about it. We barricaded ourselves in the kitchen and pigged out like we were teenagers.
We were just finishing up the last of the cherry cobbler, with black cherry ice cream, when Billy Dee came bursting into the kitchen. “What the hell is going on, Miss Yoder, and just who the hell is that in the parlor?”
Perhaps it was because I was satiated, or maybe because I realized it was pointless, but I ignored Billy Dee’s profanity. “You do know that Linda’s dead?”
Billy Dee sat down heavily on one of the kitchen stools. “That’s what the fellow in there says. Is it true? My God, he’s got Jeanette hysterical with his accusations.”
“Linda is dead,” I said gently. “That’s for sure. Susannah found her. I saw for myself. It was awful. And as for that guy in there, he’s with the police. I had to call him.”
Billy Dee shook his head in apparent bewilderment. “I just can’t believe it. There weren’t a thing wrong with her last night. And that fellow says there might have been foul play. Do you think there was?”
I looked over at Doc.
“Can’t say for sure,” he said, “but it would appear so. Looked like poisoning to me.”
Billy Dee rubbed his hands through his still-thick, only slightly graying hair. “It’s just so damn hard to believe. Who would do such a thing?”
“Your guess has got to be better than ours,” I said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you did know Linda better, much better, than I. You’re much more likely to know why someone would want her dead.”
“Linda? Not a damn clue! Jeanette, yes, but not Linda. Hell, I’ve been tempted to kill Jeanette myself, but I don’t know nobody that’s got a thing against Linda.”
“Well, maybe it was an accident then,” I suggested. Old Doc licked the foam of melted ice cream off his lips. “Could be. If she’d eaten toadstools or something. But from what’s available on Sam Yoder’s shelves, you’d have to be a wizard to put together something that toxic.”
“I don’t know about that. Sam sells some weird produce, Doc.”
Billy Dee didn’t appear to be listening. “It’s my fault,” I thought I heard him mutter.
“What did you say?”
“I might have been able to save her, Miss Yoder.”
“How so?”
He shook his head from side to side. “Last night, after I said good night to you, I went up to see if Linda was still awake. I wanted to see if she could talk some sense into Jeanette. I thought maybe Linda could convince Jeanette to hold a simple press conference and call this whole stalking thing off. Because it really ain’t nothing more than harassment. It doesn’t accomplish anything.”
“Harassment seems to be Jeanette’s specialty. But go on, how could you have saved Linda?”
Billy slapped his leg hard with the palm of his hand, as if punishing himself. “That damned sign was already on the door then, so I didn’t even bother to knock. But I should have suspected something was fishy. There ain’t no sign like that in my room, so it should have been a clue.”
“Naw,” said Doc wisely, “that doesn’t mean anything. Lots of folks travel with their own ‘do not disturb’ signs. You know what I mean?” He winked lasciviously, presumably at me again.
“I wouldn’t know about that, Doc.”
Just then Joel stuck his head in the room. From where I sat, he looked like he had been crying. “The officer wants to see you, Billy Dee,” he said.
Billy Dee got up and walked off slowly. Joel took his place on the stool.
“This is Doc Shafer,” I said by way of introduction. “And this is Joel Teitlebaum from Philadelphia.” I don’t know where my manners had gone when it was time to introduce Billy Dee.
“I’m the animal kind of doc, not the human kind,” said my friend modestly.
Joel couldn’t have cared less. “It’s all my fault,” he practically wailed. At this range it was obvious he had been crying.
“Let me see,” I pretended to muse, “you saw the ‘do not disturb’ sign hanging on Linda's door, and you didn’t disturb her, when doing so might have saved her life?”
Joel stopped a silent sob in mid-sniffle and regarded me with surprise. “How did you know?”
“Intuition. But never mind that. Tell me, how’s Jeanette holding up? After all, she is Linda’s mother.” I tactfully omitted saying that I personally thought Jeanette was as capable of feeling love as was a turnip.
Young Joel’s mouth fell open about as wide as mine did the day I got home from school early and discovered Mama and Papa having sex. “She’s what? What did you say?”
“I simply stated that Jeanette is, or should I say, was, Linda’s mother. Surely you knew that.”
“I just can’t believe that. I mean, how do you know?”
I shrugged. “I guess someone told me. Sorry, I thought it was common knowledge. But anyway, how is Jeanette doing?”
Joel pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and in so doing spilled a few sunflower seeds on my kitchen floor. “Jeanette is very upset, of course. After all, they were close, even if they were just friends. Which, of course, I guess they weren’t, since they happen to be mother and daughter.”
“They seemed close,” I conceded. “Then again, all you A.P.E.S. members seem close, which doesn’t leave much room for suspects, does it? Unless the murderer is one of the Congressman’s party?”
I thought I saw Joel squirm, but he might just have been shifting slightly on his stool. Those stools are rather hard and uncomfortable. “Why in the world would any of the Congressman’s party have it in for Linda?” he asked wide-eyed. “She never even saw them before Sunday night.”
“Beats me. But speaking of which, did you guys catch up with them in the woods today?”
Joel’s long sculptor’s fingers picked aimlessly at a sunflower seed that was stuck to his handkerchief. “If you ask me, they didn’t even go hunting today. We drove by every public access to state game lands in the country and didn’t see a sign of their car. They’re obviously not playing fair. This whole thing isn’t fair. Linda never hurt a fly, and now she’s dead. The Con-gressman, on the other hand, is a sleaze, and he gets away with everything. Life just isn’t fair.”
“Life is never fair, Joel. Those times when it seems like it, it’s just coincidence.”
“Life sucks,” said old Doc succinctly. “I ought to know. I’ve lived enough of it to be something of an expert on the subject.”
“But my God, this is too much,” sobbed Joel. He buried his face in the handkerchief with the sunflower seed still clinging to it. “Linda didn’t deserve to die. And I know you don’t like her, Miss Yoder, but Jeanette didn’t deserve to lose a daughter, either. She must be in terrible pain.”
I got up and headed for the parlor. I had to see for myself how Jeanette was doing. Much to my surprise, Melvin didn’t seem to mind when I slipped into the room. Perhaps he didn’t even notice.
But Jeanette did. She was sitting on a footstool, weeping quietly in front of the fireplace. Billy Dee was down on one knee with an arm around her, and on the other side Susannah was doing the same. Melvin was standing a few feet to Susannah’s left, seemingly staring off into space. Together, they looked like a Norman Rockwell painting that might have been titled “Grief.” Except for Jeanette, nobody seemed to notice my entering the room. The second I slipped in, she rose to her feet and pointed a finger in my direction.
“There she is!” she screamed. “There’s the woman who killed my little girl!”
For a split second I thought of slipping out again, but of course it was too late. With that one accusation Jeanette Parker had undoubtedly sent Mama spinning so fast in her grave that the heat she generated might compel God to send her to the other place. For Mama’s sake I had to stay and sort things out.