Alison jumped to her feet as well. “But Lindsey will get in a lot of trouble; her mom will just hit her harder. And Lindsey will hate me.”
“It sounds as if they both need help. If I notify the right people, Lindsey’s mother can get counseling-in fact, they can both get counseling-and in the meantime, Lindsey can be put in a protective environment where she won’t be abused.”
“Ya mean like an orphanage?”
“No. I happen to know a family-the Kreiders-who’ve been approved as foster parents, and they’re the kindest people I know. They’ve also raised seven children of their own. Why don’t I ask them how to go about this? They can tell me who else to call.”
“Ya mean it? Ya’d do this for Lindsey, even though ya don’t know her?”
“But I know you, and I love you.”
Although I am not Alison’s biological mother, thanks to the genetic web that the Amish, and those Mennonites descended from them, inherit, the child and I are fifth cousins six different ways, and only once removed. Math has never been my forte; nonetheless, by my reckoning, if you divide the five into the six, you get the number one, plus a remainder. Drop the remainder to make up for the once removed, and Alison and I are, in effect, first cousins. Thus what happened next was practically off the charts in its remarkableness.
Simultaneously Alison and I threw ourselves into each other’s arms. Whereas we should have repelled each other like black-and-white Scottie magnets, we maintained a loving hug position for almost thirty seconds, without so much as a back slap. Of course it was emotionally exhausting, and we were both panting by the time we mutually agreed to disengage.
“Just so ya know,” my teenager said, “I don’t usually go in for all this mushy stuff, on account of its too weird and all.”
“Yeah, like, really,” I said.
“Mom! That was weird too.”
“Sorry.” I yawned. “Well, dear, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to push this little feller ’s crib back into my room and topple into bed. It’ll be time to get up and get you off to the bus before you know it.”
“Ya know, I think I could get myself ready for school; I am capable of fixing my own cold cereal.”
“Yes, but on mornings when Freni’s not here, I make you cinnamon toast as well.”
My beautiful pseudo- but almost-daughter rolled her eyes. “Ya toast the bread, ya butter it, and then ya sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on it. Duh. How hard is that? It ain’t like ya gotta follow a recipe.”
The promise of more than two hours of sleep was too tempting to pass up. “Thanks, dear.” And despite Alison’s loud protests, I kissed her on the top of her head.
I didn’t get to sleep in as late as my body would have liked. After just one hour Little Jacob woke up and demanded to be fed. I was able to coax him back to sleep, but approximately three hours later my telephone rang a thousand and one times. I didn’t exactly count the rings, but they were woven into the fabric of my dreams.
“Scheherazade speaking,” I said when I at last picked up. “I’m fresh out of stories.”
“Miss Yoder, I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but I need your woman’s intuition.”
“Which is worth two facts from a man.”
“Miss Yoder, are you listening?”
“I don’t have the energy to do anything else, dear.”
“The sheriff just called. He said that a small steamroller-suitable for home landscaping-was checked out from Rent-a-Dent. That’s the home supply store all the way over by Somerset. The individual renting it paid cash in advance for two days’ use of the roller, but supplied their own flatbed truck on which to haul it. Although that too may have been rented-but from somewhere else.”
My heart sank as a lightbulb went off in my sleep-deprived brain. “Does the clerk remember this individual?”
“Unfortunately that clerk started vacation today. He’s on a flight to Cancún, Mexico, as we speak; his flight left Pittsburgh at two thirty this morning. Apparently it was a last-minute deal. Tell me, Miss Yoder, what are the odds?”
“I believe it’s called synchronicity-it’s not compatible with my belief system, and ergo does not really exist, but I must say it does seem to happen with astonishing frequency.”
“You’re truly a puzzle, Miss Yoder.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, dear. So tell me, what exactly is it you need from me?”
“To be honest, just about everything at the moment: a warm shoulder, a tender heart, a sympathetic ear-oh, catfish, that didn’t come out right.”
“Then give it another shot. I am, if anything, the epitome of patience.”
To his credit, he barely snickered. “No argument there, Miss Yoder. And just so you know, the longer I live here, the deeper my understanding is of what an invaluable resource you are-a veritable font of information, as they say.”
“No one your age says that, Chief. And while you may certainly continue to butter me up, perhaps we should defer that most pleasant of activities to another time. What say we cut to the chase now and tell me what this huge favor is, before I decide to book a flight to Cancún. I have no interest in the beaches, mind you, but I’ve always been fascinated by the Mayan civilization.”
“Uh-ahm-uh-”
“Spit it out, dear. I probably have less than fifty Christmases left.”
“Well, remember how we originally discussed that once I moved to Pennsylvania my personal life would remain just that?”
“And so it has. If I wanted to dredge up dirt on someone’s sex life, there are plenty of heterosexuals hereabout I could go after. For instance, there is Miss I-Can’t-Be-Bothered-with-Drapes even though she plays the organ for the Baptist church, and then there’s our local representative, Congressman Narrow-Stance Buckley-”
“Miss Yoder! I’ve been arrested!”
29
“You’ve what?”
“It was in order to keep our agreement, you see. Last night, after I wrapped up my part of the crime scene investigation, I felt so revved up that I drove into Pittsburgh and-Shoot, there’s no way to say it other than to just say it, I guess.”
“Then say it, for crying out loud. What did you do? Rob a bank? Because that’s what I’d do if I was really revved up and I thought I wouldn’t-Oops, I didn’t just say that, did I?”
“Being funny is not going to help me. I was arrested for trying to pick up an undercover officer outside a gay bar.”
“Oh, my stars! You mean to say that there really are such places as gay bars? Good heavens, what won’t they think of next!”
“I hate to break the news to you, Miss Yoder, but gay bars are hardly a new phenomenon.”
Ever the practical sort, my mind had skipped ahead a step or two. “Chief, do you need a good lawyer? And is bail going to be an issue?”
“No. Kevin-that’s this guy whom I met in the clinker, and that’s his term for it, not mine-has a roommate who’s a civil rights attorney. But if you’ll recall, my contract with the municipality of Hernia has a morals contract, which I signed, stating that my employment would be terminated immediately if I was ever arrested. For anything.”
“Surely it reads conviction.”
“No. Besides, I’ve been giving this some thought, and I really do want to quit police work. Let’s face it, Miss Yoder. You’re a far better policeman than I’ve ever been.”
“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment, dear. What will you do instead? Where will you go?”
“I have a cousin in San Francisco who owns a designer pet store. She’s been working for years on breeding a strain of guppy so small that a dozen of them can swim comfortably inside a water-filled bra. One’s own body heat would supply the warmth that these tropical fish need, and every time the wearer raises and lowers her arms-presumably the market is women-a miniature pump delivers oxygen into the twin chambers of this wearable tank. True, it’s a gimmick, but some gimmicks have a way of really catching on, you know? Doris plans to market this as the Flaunt Your Fins Bra, and if she can get even just one member of the Chinese Olympic swim team to endorse it, we’ll have it made in the shade.”