That phraseology had always sounded like something out of my high school debating-club days, but I knew what this man meant.
"Spread 'em! Get 'em up!"
I pressed my palms against the wall of the house as the cop patted me down.
He had pocketed his flashlight, but he still held the police special. A door opened off to my right, and I heard a nasal female voice say, "What's going on?
Horse, what in the world are you doing?"
"Speck Spindler saw somebody in your yard, Mrs. Krumfutz, and called it in. It's this guy here!"
"Oh, for heaven sakes!"
As the cop yanked my wallet out of my jacket pocket, I turned far enough to catch sight of a bulky woman in a pale green sweat suit. With her small mouth open in a look of shocked surprise, she was identical to the woman I'd seen the day before at Jim Suter's quilt panel, minus the shades and the golf-cart-motif head scarf. Mrs. Krumfutz did have a bandanna tied around her head, but instead of golf carts it had pictures of cherry pies all over it. I knew they were cherry because each pie had a C carved in the crust.
"Are you all right, Mrs. Krumfutz?" the cop said as he flipped through my wallet with one hand.
"Yes, Horse, I'm just fine. Don't worry about me. Who is he?"
"Is there someone else here with you?"
"No, but this fella didn't get inside. Who is he?"
It was not true that Mrs. Krumfutz had been alone in her house. In the instant before the cop-Officer "Horse" seemed to be his name-came upon me and shouted, I had caught a fleeting image of two figures in the Krumfutz living room.
They had seemed to be kneeling on the floor side by side, but it all happened so quickly that I couldn't be sure of what I had seen.
"His name is Donald Strachey." To me the cop boomed, "Are you Donald Strachey?"
"Yes."
"What do you think you're doing on this property?"
"Conducting an investigation."
"An investigation? What do you mean, an investigation?"
"I'm a private investigator licensed in the state of New York.
My card is in the wallet." At this, Mrs. Krumfutz, I thought, flinched.
"If the laws of New York are anything like the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I don't think you're licensed to trespass," the cop said. "Now turn around slowly and look at me."
I turned and faced a big, ruddy-faced youth with clear blue eyes and a name tag that read "Patrolman Lewis Henderson Jr."
"What you and I are going to do now, Donald, is we're going to walk out to my patrol car-you walking ahead of me- and you're going to get into the backseat, and you're going to sit down there while I shut the door. Do you understand that, Donald?"
"Yep."
"Just a minute," Mrs. Krumfutz said, and walked closer to the cop and me without ever quite joining either of us. "Let's just have a look at that license of yours, Mr. Donald-the-Private-Investigator."
As the cop held open my wallet, Mrs. Krumfutz came closer to him and squinted at it briefly. She said to me, "Donald Stra-chey. Why, I think I know just who you are."
"Oh?"
"Who is he?" the cop said.
"Horse," she said, forcing a tight grin, "I think this might be all right."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Could I speak to Donald privately for just a second? This may be just a teeny-tiny bit personal. If you know what I mean," she added, and let loose with an outburst that was half cough and half cackle.
Officer Henderson didn't seem to like the way all this was heading. Clearly, the correct procedure here was to lock me in the cruiser while he ran my name through the computer. But, owing to her celebrity status-not just as a pro-life, pro-gun former congresswoman but as a pro-life, pro-gun former congresswoman who had been involved in a scandal that had gripped the Susquehanna valley at six and eleven for many weeks-Mrs. Krumfutz was a woman whose wishes could reasonably be viewed as something akin to authoritative and would thus supplant any normal routine.
Henderson said, "He's not armed. If you'd like to step inside, I'll stand by. Holler if you need help."
"Thanks, Horse." Mrs. Krumfutz gestured for me to follow her.
We went into the house and she shut the door behind us. Instead of remaining near the door, she led me across the kitchen, through another door, and into the garage. A dim overhead light went on automatically.
I said, "You don't want us to be within earshot of Officer Henderson. Is that right?"
"Yes," she hissed, and her black eyes bore into me. "All right, Mr. Peeping Tom, you can spit it out right now. Are you working for Nelson?"
"I am unable to identify my client, Mrs. Krumfutz. I'm sorry."
"Maybe you'll be able to identify your client," she said evenly, "if I go get my Walther PK-38 and threaten to blow your face off. Would that make a difference?"
She talked like an NRA fund-raising letter, and I'd run into gun people before and knew they could be dangerous. Also, I wasn't sure there weren't two Mexican hit men somewhere in the house. I looked at Mrs. Krumfutz and wondered if I should make a break for it out the front while she was still unarmed and before Luis and Hector appeared. The problem was, the cop knew my name and had my car ID-in fact, he was still holding my wallet.
Mrs. Krumfutz said, "Cat got your tongue, dog's breath?"
Recklessly I said, "I saw you."
She went white. Then suddenly her color returned with a rush, and she snapped, "I don't give a hoot! It doesn't make a bit of difference. I've got plenty on Nelson. I know it and he knows it!"
"What have you got?"
"I've still got my scrapbook, and Nelson knows I've got it. If that man messes with me, believe you me, I'll put him in the hoosegow for the rest of his life. Just don't tempt me, Donald. You tell him that. Just don't tempt Betty, tell him. And if anything happens to me-if they find my body dumped on the Log Heaven levee some fine morning-that's it. It all goes to the prosecutors, the whole kit and caboodle. Friends of mine have their definite instructions."
"You seem to have made thorough arrangements, Mrs. Krumfutz. I'm impressed. You're quite a force to be reckoned with. Tell me more."
"I'll tell you not one more blessed thing. Now get out of my house and out of Log Heaven, and take your filth with you!"
"My filth?"
"You tracked mud through my kitchen! I'd make you stay and mop it up, but I'm sick to death of you and everything you and my husband represent, and I want you out of here now. I'll fix it with Horse Henderson. I just want you out of my house!"
"I'll be happy to go, but I want you to understand one thing, Mrs. Krumfutz, and understand it clearly. If you unleash your Mexican paid killers, and if anything happens to Jim Suter- anything at all, now or in the distant future-I will expose you. You'll pay. You'll go down the rest of the way. All the rest of the way.
Do you understand me?"
She stood there looking baffled. "Hit men? My Lord, is that what Nelson thinks?
Don't be silly. And Jim Suter? You mean Jim Suter the writer?"
"Who else?"
"Donald, I don't know what in the Sam Hill you're even talking about. One of us must be crazy as a loon. What's Jim Suter got to do with it?"
Chapter 10
Mrs. Krumfutz just snickered at the idea of Mexican paid killers, and she found it preposterous that Jim Suter had any connection at all to her husband's criminal activity, the exact nature of which I could not get her to specify. I thought her repeated references to "my scrapbook" referred to additional records she had kept on the campaign-finance scam, but I wasn't sure of it, and as she began to sense how little I actually knew about her husband's activities, she grew even cagier and less forthcoming on that subject. Nor did Jim Suter seem to have anything to do with whatever it was that had gone on in Mrs. Krumfutz's house that night and which I pretended to have witnessed but hadn't actually. I had only just seen two people kneeling side by side, or so it seemed.