“You’re married, Wanda, and Chris bats for a different team. Besides, aren’t you having an affair?”
“Oh, right, my affair with Mr. Sudoku. Unlike Miss Fecund at forty-eight, here, I’m already going through menopause, and I’m only forty-seven. A lot of nights I have trouble sleeping, so I sit up and amuse myself with Sudoku. I’ve gotten really hooked.”
“You’re seeing a Japanese gentleman?”
“Why, Magdalena, you sound almost jealous.”
“Curious, that’s all. Where did you meet this gentleman?”
Wanda and Agnes both laughed. I could tell that it was at my expense, so I decided to laugh along with them. In fact, I may have outdone them, because not only did I get several dogs to howl, but the Bontragers’ donkey began to bray.
“That ass has always had a thing for me,” I said.
“He’s probably smarter than you,” Wanda said. “Sudoku isn’t a person; it’s a type of puzzle. Sort of like a crossword, but with numbers.”
“Oh, that,” I said. “I’ve seen those books for sale at Pat’s IGA. Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Ladies,” Agnes hissed, “let’s get back to Mr. Whitmore’s murder.”
“Indeed,” I said. “But frankly, Agnes, I fail to see why you called me over. I already knew that a steamroller was involved, and since Wanda couldn’t identify the driver of the flatbed…” I let my voice trail off.
“The driver was a woman,” Wanda snarled.
“Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere; my ellipse was eclipsed by an assertion! On what do you base that, Wanda?”
“Because what I didn’t tell you was that I barely made it to the garbage cans in time. There was a family of raccoons crossing the road, single file, just as that flatbed roared by. They were all in the opposite lane by then, except for the last little cub. Whoever was driving that flatbed swerved just the tiniest bit, to keep from hitting it. A woman would have done that.”
Agnes gasped. “Wanda, now I’m surprised. That’s very sexist of you. Are you saying a man would have hit the cub?”
“No, I’m only saying that a woman would not have hit it. We’re nurturers. Why, even Magdalena has a maternal side.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Do you really believe that a woman, on her way to squash a man with a steamroller, would swerve to avoid hitting a raccoon?”
“It was a baby. It was cute. And it’s called compartmentalization, Miss Smarty Pants. Besides, she screamed something out the window as well. It was a woman’s voice, so there!”
“Agnes,” I said, “aren’t there times when you just want to take Wanda and shake some sense into her?”
“Boy, I’ll say. Wanda, did you recognize the voice?”
“No. Don’t you think I would have told you that?”
And then just like that, I had all the pieces to the puzzle. “Ladies-and naked gents hovering in the distance-I must bid adieu, for duty calls.”
“What?” Wanda said. “You know I don’t speak Spanish.”
Despite her size, Agnes could move with lightning speed, and she managed to grab my arm before I could hoof it back to my car. “Not so fast, Magdalena. You’re on to something, and we demand to know to what.”
“Yeah,” Wanda said. “After what you put us through last time, we have a right to know.”
“More than that,” Agnes said, gripping my arm even tighter, “we have a right to come along.”
“And what exactly do you mean?” I said.
“We were your Ethel Mertzes in your last shenanigans: when you hoisted your mother-in-law onto a cow and sent it crashing off through the woods. You put our lives on the line that night-chasing down an armed couple-but I must say, it was the single most thrilling thing that ever happened to me.”
“Who is Ethel Mertz?” I asked, and quite reasonably, I may add. My parents, Old Order Mennonites both, never watched a single television program in their lives. I, however, have yielded to temptation and viewed a few of the older comedies, the one referenced among them. I must say, however, that the finest show ever produced was Green Acres.
“Uh, Magdalena,” Wanda grunted, “you’re helplessly conservative. There’s no sin in watching old TV shows such as I Love Lucy.”
“That wouldn’t be Lucifer, would it?”
“She’s trying to stall,” Agnes said. “If she can succeed in making you blow your stack, then maybe you won’t want to come with her.”
“Ha! In that case she’s out of luck. I bought that book The Impatient Person’s Guide to Meditation back when it made the New York Times bestseller list, and I read most of it. I can become very tranquil if I set my mind to it.”
“Then for the love of scrapple,” Agnes panted, “set your mind to it now.”
“Ohmmmmmmmm.”
Life’s many twists and turns are supposed to be what keeps it interesting, but a peaceful Wanda? Now, that takes the cake! This I had to see.
“Okay,” I said, “but I can’t guarantee your safety, and you have to do exactly as I order.”
“Listen here, Magdalena. I don’t take orders!”
“Yes, she does.” Agnes let go of my arm and enclosed Wanda in her bulk. “Say it again, Wanda. Ohmmmmmmmm.”
Wanda’s eyes narrowed but she complied, and so we three musketless dears set off to catch a killer.
Just as I thought, there was a cab with an attached flatbed trailer parked in the turnaround in front of Minerva J. Jay’s house. Not being the total fool that some folks think I am, as soon as I caught a glimpse of this, I backed up for a good quarter of a mile.
“What gives?” Wanda demanded. “Are you losing your nerve?”
“No, dear, although you seem to have lost your ohmniscience.”
“They were two-minute exercises, Magdalena, and there were only three in the book. It took us a lot longer than that to get all the way out here. Where are we, by the way?”
“Thousand Caves Retirement Village,” Agnes said. “I brought my uncles out here to look at plots. Minerva assured them that there would be a nudist section, but they chickened out. You see, Uncle Remus is afraid of gaping holes.”
“That’s nice, dear. Okay, everyone out.”
“Out?” They both sounded terrified.
“We can’t sneak up on them in a car, ladies, can we?”
“No,” Agnes said, “but we can call the sheriff.”
“We can tell him that there’s a flatbed truck out here, so what? You don’t see a steamroller, do you? We need to get close enough to get some hard evidence. Besides, you can’t get cell phone reception here; I’ve tried once before.”
“Do you have a gun?” Wanda said.
“No! I’m a proper Mennonite, for goodness’ sake, not a liberal one, like you.” Oops, perhaps I had gone too far. Wanda belongs to the First Mennonite Church, not Beechy Grove, and they are indeed a different breed, but they are still ostensibly pacifist.
“Magdalena has her keen mind,” Agnes said loyally.
“Ha,” Wanda snorted. “If she’s so smart, then why did she marry a bigamist?”
I took a deep breath and composed what I believed to be a beatific smile. “Wanda, dear, if you’re afraid, then by all means remain in the car. Just don’t play the radio, because we can’t come back to a dead battery. If you get really bored, there’s last year’s Farmer’s Almanac under the passenger-side front seat. Be sure to lock the doors, of course, and whatever you do, don’t open the door if you hear something scraping against it. They say that the tourist from Harrisburg died of a heart attack, but what the paper didn’t mention was the hook that was found hanging from the door handle.” I flashed her my beatific smile again.
“Don’t be ridiculous; of course I’m coming. You’re going to need my brain to make yours a whole wit. But first, don’t you have to use the bushes?”