Seeing that I had no choice but to let Lucifer have it with both lungs, I virtually flew back into the house and snatched up the nearest phone. “It’s not funny, you idiot!”
“Uh-”
“By the way, is it hot enough for you?” I slammed the receiver down, shaking with anger and trepidation. After all, it’s not every day that one yells so directly at the Big S, and Heaven only knows what torments he’s capable of enacting as earthly revenge.
Within two seconds the horrible machine that Alexander Graham Bell invented rang again.
“Miss Yoder, don’t hang-”
The Devil sounded maddeningly familiar. But since deception is what he does best, that wasn’t too surprising.
“I’d tell you where to go, except you’re already there,” I cried. “So, with all due respect-oops, there isn’t any-get thee to the St. Louis Airport, Concourse A.” Again I slammed the receiver into its cradle.
They say that the third time is a charm. I won’t agree in this case, but at least by then I thought to turn off the ringer, if need be, rather than smash my phone or rip the cord from the wall. As for simply unplugging the jack, what kind of satisfaction would there be in that?
“Look, you asp,” I screeched into the receiver, “you two-headed son of a viper-”
“Elias Whitmore is dead.”
28
“You’re going to kill him just to get back at me? Well, I have news for you, buster; even if you do, the Lord will still claim his soul. Elias Whitmore is a bona fide born-again Christian.”
“No offense, Miss Yoder, but have you ever considered seeing a shrink? Sometimes you make less sense than a single copper penny.”
“Good one, Chief-Chief, is that you?”
“Of course. Who did you think it was?”
“Not the Devil-I mean, how silly do you think I am? Magdalena Cuckoo Yoder is not really my name, despite any rumors you may have heard.”
“Miss Yoder, please quit babbling, and just listen for a change.”
“Will do, buckaroo-er, Chief-not that anyone really says er, except in works of fiction.”
“Did you hear me say that Elias Whitmore is dead?”
That’s when his words first sank in. “Dead dead, as in really dead?”
“Totally dead. Can’t get any deader. As a matter of fact, I want you to come up here and take a look before the sheriff gets here.”
“Where are you?”
“Halfway up Buffalo Mountain, on Zigler Bend Road at the second turnaround.”
“I’ll be right there, dear.”
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t enjoy looking at dead bodies-or corpses, if you prefer-but I do find them rather interesting. What fascinates me is how unlifelike the empty human shell is, even just a second after death. There isn’t a mortuary beautician in the world capable of making human remains really appear as if the deceased is merely sleeping. The truth is, either we are corpses or we aren’t, and the transformation is instantaneous.
All of Hernia seemed to be asleep, making the swirling red light atop Chief Ackerman’s squad car all the more startling. I pulled over as soon as I found some shoulder and walked up the rest of the way. The last fifty yards I had a flashlight shining in my face.
“What are you trying to do, dear, blind me?”
“Why did you stop so far down the road?”
“I didn’t want to inadvertently drive over any evidence. Where is he?”
“You’re going to need to steel yourself, Miss Yoder. This isn’t pretty.”
“I’ve seen ugly before.”
“Not like this. You might even vomit-like I did.”
“Please be a mensch and don’t let me step in that.”
“What?”
“Just tell me where to walk.”
The chief took my elbow and gently led me toward the outer edge of the turnaround. The clearing is a semicircle carved into the woods and is meant not so much as a second chance for fearful or fickle drivers, as a place to pull over in emergencies, such as failing brakes. The surface of the turnaround is flat and smooth, chiseled out of solid bedrock, but it is surrounded by a low stone wall that defines its boundaries and gives at least the illusion of safety.
Halfway to the perimeter I stopped on my own. “Oh no, his car went through the wall and over the edge. How awful! What do you think happened? Did he fall asleep?”
“He didn’t go over,” the Chief said.
“Oh. But his car did, right?”
“No. His car is still up at his house.”
“Then I don’t get it.”
“That damage was most probably done by a steamroller.”
“Elias was driving a steamroller? But why? Aren’t they used to flatten things-like dirt and freshly laid asphalt?”
“Elias wasn’t driving it. Magdalena, look straight ahead and on the ground. Look carefully. And I’m here to brace you.”
“Okay, but all I see is black rock and some wet, dark mud, and some rags-oh, my Land o’ Goshen!” I started to sway like a young pine in a late March wind.
“Easy there, Miss Yoder. Take a deep breath. Remember, I’ve got you. You’re not going to fall.”
“But I am going to hurl!”
“I thought as much.”
And retch I did. However, young Chris Ackerman is a gentleman and even offered me his shirt upon which to wipe my face when I was quite through. His mother should be very proud of him, even though he has stolen from her the “right to be a grandmother,” and she has had to change churches twice in order not to hear sermons preached against her son.
“That-that was Elias?” I finally was able to gasp.
“Yes. As you saw, he’s been squished flatter than a pancake. What’s left of him could fit in a pizza box-if you folded him several times.”
“So the steamroller responsible for this continued on over the side of the mountain?”
“Actually, no. Whoever lugged it up the mountain hauled it back down again.”
“Chief, how’d you find out about this?”
“Mitzi Kramer’s beagle wouldn’t shut up until she took him inside.”
Mitzi is even older than Doc Shafor and has kept a succession of outdoor dogs ever since 1963, when, she claims, she caught Sasquatch-or his Pennsylvania equivalent-peeping in her bedroom window. Unfortunately for Mitzi’s neighbors Hernia’s sound ordinances don’t apply to Buffalo Mountain. The old woman doesn’t know how lucky she is that we are basically good folk and would rather simmer with resentment than harm an animal just because it has an inconsiderate owner.
I stared openmouthed at Elias’s flattened remains long enough to catch a nightjar. “Good golly, Miss Molly,” I said.
“Forgive me, Miss Yoder, but you’re turning into a real potty mouth. You weren’t that way when I first moved here, and I kind of liked that better.”
“Maybe it’s been all of your negative California jives.”
“I think you mean vibes-then again, with you I’m never sure. Anyway, the sheriff’s bringing his own dogs. But unless whoever did this to poor Elias drove the steamroller back down the mountain, I don’t expect the dogs to contribute much except for more noise. Shoot, I can hear the sheriff’s siren now.”
“Talk about being a potty mouth; that’s merely vowel substitution.”
“Pardon me?”
“Never mind. Hand me your flashlight, please.”
The chief was loath to do so, but since loath is such an underused word these days, one couldn’t begrudge that emotion. At any rate, I took the torch-as they say across the pond-and quickly swept the edge of the clearing for clues. Forsooth, I stayed as far away as I could from the flattened remains of the young but no longer quite so handsome Elias Whitmore. In fact, I wasn’t even tempted to glance his way.
Okay, so maybe I was tempted a wee bit, but as we all know, it’s not the act of temptation that counts, but whether or not we succumb to it. The fallen angel on my left shoulder was making a good case for taking a quick second look. After all, she said, I was unlikely to get another opportunity such as this. How many people had ever seen a human pancake? she asked. And didn’t I realize that my observations might be of scientific interest?