Between a Wok and a Hard Place (14 page)

We regarded each other warily. No doubt I struck her as a loose cannon, liable to go off at any moment. On the other

hand, I could see the muscles on her bare arms. Garlic might have helped her win all those wrestling matches, but it

wasn't the only factor.

"Call Zelda."

She walked to the phone and dialed without breaking eye contact. She asked to speak to Zelda, told her the

situation, and then said "uh-huh" half a dozen times. By the time she hung up she seemed a trifle more relaxed.

"Well?" she asked.

I realized I was still clutching the ten dollar bill and stuffed it in my bra. Unfortunately I was wearing a beltless dress

that day and the bill fell straight through to the floor. I surreptitiously kicked it under the couch.

"Well what?"

"Your questions!"

I dove right in. "Did your son" - I turned to Harvey - "did you see any other vehicles at the Settler's Cemetery last

night? I mean besides your car and the Mast buggy?"

Harvey shook his head. His eyes had finally cleared. He'd been watching the exchange between his mother and me

with amusement. Apparently we were more entertaining than a whole team of terrapins.

"Did you see anyone flee the scene of the crime? Maybe on foot?"

He shook his head again.

"Would you please describe what you saw and heard up on Stucky Ridge," I said through gritted teeth. Who says I

can't be patient?

"Well, Cathy and I" - he glanced at his mother and then down at his dirty bare feet - "were enjoying the view, and

then Cathy asks if I made this certain noise" - he had the poor taste to chuckle - "and I said I didn't. I said I thought it

came from outside. Then we heard it a couple of times more.

"Only there wasn't anybody up there enjoying the view that night but us, and so I said it had to come from the

cemetery side then. I wanted to see if I could scare Cathy, see? There's this story about - "

"About a couple parked in a car at night in a deserted place and they hear this scratching at one of the car doors, and

they drive off in terror, only to discover later than there is a prosthetic hook dangling from the door handle?"

His eyes were not only clear, but wide. "How'd you know?"

"I was a teenager myself, dear. That story is a classic. Cemeteries, overlooks, deserted country roads - it probably

gets told every night during the summer."

The truth is I heard that story up in the hayloft of my father's barn. But thanks to Mama, I didn't get to hear it until this

summer when Aaron and I got caught in the barn by heavy rains. Did I mention that the occasion was my wedding, and

there were fifty guests up in that hayloft with us trying to escape flood- waters? Hearing the hook story under those

conditions was probably not the same.

Harvey looked at me with a modicum of respect. "Yes, ma'am. Anyway, we drove around to the cemetery, and like I

said, we didn't see anybody but that one horse and buggy. And of course the two guys in it that had been shot."

13

"Two guys?"

"Yes, ma'am. The one was bleeding horrible - Cathy puked, I almost did. The other didn't seem so bad off. Anyway,

Cathy and I don't know much about lifesaving things, so we decided the best thing we could do is go for help." He paused.

"Actually, I asked Cathy if she wanted to stay with the guys until I got back, but she was too scared. And she doesn't know

how to drive a stick shift."

"You did just fine, Harvey," Salina said. She gave me a challenging look, which I ignored.

"Did you know these boys? The ones in the buggy?"

"Nope. Amish kids. They all look alike to me." He laughed hollowly. It would be a waste of breath to remind him that

his great-grandparents had been Amish. The same was true of Catherine Blough.

"One boy was Enos Mast," I said. "He's in Bedford County Memorial Hospital now, in a coma. But he's the only boy

listed in the police report. What happened to the other?"

He shrugged. "Zelda - I mean, Officer Root, drove me back up there in the squad car. Cathy stayed behind. The

Bedford paramedics were on our tail the whole way. When we got there, we found just the one guy."

I asked for permission to use the phone, and was given it reluctantly. Salina hovered nearby as I gingerly picked up

the smudged receiver and called the station. Melvin answered. I could hear the same turtle cartoon playing in the

background.

"Turn off the TV, Melvin, I've got a question."

He sighed, but turned it off. "I'm allowed two official breaks, you know. And a half-hour lunch."

"Can the excuses. I want to know why there weren't two Amish boys listed as victims on that report Zelda showed

me."

"Because there weren't."

"That's not a reason, Melvin. Why weren't they listed?"

"I mean, Yoder, there weren't two boys involved. Just the one. Enos Mast."

"But Harvey Zook - "

"Did Harvey tell you he was drinking?" I glanced at Harvey. "No he didn't"

"The kid couldn't have walked a straight line if it had been painted on his shoes. It was a wonder he and the Blough

girl made it down from Stucky Ridge in one piece. But when we gave him the breathalyzer test it came well below the

legal limit."

"Pot," I said. Trust me, I only know about such things because of my clientele. It may shock you to learn that many of

the rich and famous are cannabis connoisseurs. Of course if I catch them at it, they get the bottom of my shoe, whether

they've inhaled or not.

"What?"

"The road up Stucky Ridge is full of pot holes," I said, trying to be discreet.

There was a long pause during which my nose began to itch. I rubbed the receiver against my shnoz, which was a

big mistake -

"Melvin, are you there?"

"You're not making a bit of sense, Yoder."

"You're the pot calling the kettle black," I said, trying one more time. But it was no use. Melvin's shoe size surpassed

his IQ in the eighth grade.

"I don't have time for riddles, Yoder," he snapped. "My point is, the kid was seeing double, even though he wasn't

drunk. But there was only one victim in the buggy, I can assure you. Zelda checked the buggy and the area thoroughly.

No sign of another kid."

"Uh-huh." I was staring balefully at Harvey for having supplied me with a possible breakthrough clue that didn't hold

up in the light of sobriety.

Harvey was staring back. In his own way, he was daring me not to tell his mother his choice of refreshments the night

before.

"You making any progress on your end?" Melvin asked, almost casually. I could hear the TV on again, although the

volume was lower.

"I'll have this case solved for you by the end of the week," I said and hung up.

"Everything all righ?" Salina asked, still inches away. For some strange reason - call it intuition if you want - I

decided to start playing the game as close to my meager chest as possible. I would hold off on trump until the rook was

played.

I smiled. "Everything is hunky-dory, dear."

Salina's sigh of relief could have blown out a candle at thirty paces. Thank the Good Lord she was no longer into arm

wrestling on a daily basis.

"Come back any time," she said, escorting me to the door. "See you at Mennonite Women's Sewing Circle?"

"What are we sewing this month? Layette sets for Afghanistan?" We Mennonites, as you probably know, make a

concerted effort to relieve the suffering of others. Our sewing group has, in the past ten years, produced over thirty-

thousand baby bundles for disadvantaged infants here and abroad.

“This month it's Somalia,” she said, as if we'd been having a casual conversation all along.

I was adjusting my rearview mirror, about to start backing our of her driveway when Harvey rapped on the passenger

window. I leaned over and rolled it down.

"You owe me,” I said.

“I know. Thanks. That's what I came out to tell you.”

“Don't think you're getting off the hook. You need to tell her. Before Melvin or Zelda does.”

“I know. I promised them I would.”

“See that you do.”

He cleared his throat nervously. “About what I owe you. . . I want to pay you back.”

I smiled graciously. “Mose could use a little help cleaning out the barn. How about tomorrow morning? Make that

ten?”

He winced. “What I meant was, I have some information that you might want?”

I glared at him. “I do not and have never smoked pot.”

He laughed and then caught himself. “lt's about the boy. The other one in the buggy.”

“What about him?"

“I know who he is.”

“But you said - “

“I didn't want to be a rat Mrs. Miller. He begged us not to tell anyone that he was even there, but then Cathy got

excited and let it slip. But she didn't know his name. I do."

Never look a gift horse in the mouth, Mama used to say, although she had no idea what that meant. This time she

was right.

"What is his name?" I asked gently.

"If I tell you, will you keep it to yourself?"

"I won't blab it," I said. "But I do intend to track him down. It's the best chance we have of finding the person or

persons who shot Enos."

He nodded. "Yeah, Enos."

"You knew Enos?"

His homely visage was vastly improved by a smile, even a rueful one. "That crack in there about all Amish kids

looking alike - I didn't mean it. We play ball with them sometimes. Hunt and fish. That kind of thing."

It was hard to imagine Harvey not tied to the tube, but of course I was too polite to say so. I bit my tongue and

nodded.

"The kid you want is Samuel Kauffman," he said.

"You sure?"

"Positive. I know him pretty well. His parents let me fish on his farm - they've got some huge bass, but it's the

channel catfish I go after. Some of them are three feet long."

"What happened to Samuel?"

"He got shot, too. But just in one shoulder. He was hurting real bad but he could still walk. But he was really scared. I

mean, like really."

"You would be, too, if you got shot." I have, in fact, been shot at, and thus had the authority for my pronouncement.

And even thought this incident involving me happened some months ago, I can still hear the bullets whizzing by my ears.

"Yeah. But Samuel was afraid that the killer would come back to finish him off, and he wouldn't go with us to get help.

He made us promise not to tell and then ran into the trees.”

“The cemetery grove?”

“No, down the mountain. Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, but I think he was headed home.”

I thanked Harvey for his help and made him promise to stop smoking marijuana. I didn't care, I said, if half the kids in

Hernia High were into it these days, and if even a few of the Amish kids chose to get high as well. It was against the law

and wrong, and if what I could extrapolate from some of my guests was an accurate picture, it eventually made one as

dumb as post.

“You're a bright boy,” I said kindly, “but not so bright that you can afford to lose any brain cells. And quit watching all

that mindless television and pick up a good book.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said with only a hint of mockery in his voice.

“And tell your mama,” I added sternly, “because she will find out.”

I drove off thinking about the time Mama caught me drinking. One of my friends, Lucille Benderhaus, had recently

moved from Bedford to Hernia and I had been invited to spend the night with her. We ordered in pizza, and much to my

astonishment Lucille produced a beer. A single can to share between us. Up until that point not a drop of alcohol had

passed these lips, but that night I yielded to temptation and had my first sip. I thought of it as a spiritual inoculation, you

see. One small sip for woman, one giant leap for perpetual sobriety. Just one taste, and I would cheat the Devil.