No Use Dying Over Spilled Milk (9 page)

I had asked her, and she had told me more than I’d expected.

The county sheriff’s office was just across the street, so I left my car at Pauline’s and hoofed it. I am a firm believer in exercise, and after jumping to conclusions, walking is my favorite kind. Walking is, after all, a natural form of exercise and was even practiced back in Biblical days. The Apostles, I know, did a lot of it. There is not one verse, however, that mentions them hopping up and down on steps that go nowhere or rowing boats without hulls. That’s because they weren’t lazy. Susannah, on the other hand, takes an afternoon aerobics class in Bedford that she drives to. Half the time Susannah skips her class because she can’t find a parking place close enough to suit her. Go figure.

At any rate, you would think that walking to the sheriff’s office would give me plenty of opportunity to read the sign by the front door, but I must have been thinking about home, and Aaron, because I missed it. It was only after I had closed the front door behind me, and set off some sort of signal which alerted the secretary, that I realized the Farmersburg sheriff’s office was not where I wanted to be.

“Can I help you?” the secretary asked. She was in fact very pleasant.

“Ah, no thanks. I thought this was the telephone company.” Okay, so it was a lie, but a lie told under extreme pressure. If there ever was a mitigating circumstance, it was the sign behind her that read Marvin Stoltzfus, Sheriff.

“The telephone company is two stoplights west, then left on Main. Right beside the Baptist church.”

“Thank you.”

I wheeled and was about to make the fastest exit ever out of a building not on fire, but the front door opened and in stepped the sheriff. There was no mistaking that he was a Stoltzfus.

To be truthful, he didn’t look anything like our chief of police back in Hernia, Melvin Stoltzfus, who, tradition said, was kicked in the head by a bull when he tried to milk it. However, every molecule in my body knew they were related. Maybe it was the pheromone things again. After all, if Jack’s giant can smell the blood of an Englishman, I see no reason why a Yoder can’t smell a Stoltzfus. He probably smelled me too.

“Don’t I know you?” asked Sheriff Stoltzfus.

“No.” I tried to move around him, but he jockeyed to cut me off.

“Marilyn Memmer, is it?”

“No.” I bobbed in the opposite direction but wasn’t quick enough.

“Rebecca Kreider?”

“No!” My patience was wearing thin, and I would have to go over him if I couldn’t get around him on the next try.

“Agnes Hostetler?”

“Getting warmer,” I said, taking a step forward.

“Aha! You’re a Yoder, aren’t you?”

I stepped back. I’d been caught. My colors were revealed. “But you don’t know which Yoder now, do you?” I taunted him.

He laughed, something Melvin would never have done, and took two steps forward so that we were nose to chin. His nose, my chin. “Does it make a difference? You Yoders—”

“Yes?” I am five-ten, and I was wearing a winter coat. If I stand straight and extend my arms slightly at the sides I can make most men back off, or at least move aside.

Marvin was unmoved. “You have a record?”

“Just hymns,” I said. “But not with me.”

“Driver’s license?”

“I walked.” Perhaps I was being a mite difficult, but the man was blocking my access to the door and I was beginning to feel like a caged animal. Even a docile cow can get belligerent when cornered.

“I asked to see your driver’s license,” Marvin hissed. He tapped the badge on his chest authoritatively. “You have to show it to me.”

“Why?”

Marvin’s right arm moved, and for a split second I thought he was going to reach for the gun in his holster, but instead he took off his sheriff’s cap. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing.

Sheriff Marvin Stoltzfus possessed the biggest ears, bar none, that I had ever seen on a human being.

They were as big as saucers, and could only have been folded beneath that regulation cap. Suddenly unfettered, the ears trembled and swayed, apparently adjusting themselves to their new environment.

He scratched the top of his head. “I said, give me your license.”

Obediently I opened my purse, fished out my wallet, and thrust my license at him. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him after all. Perhaps a look at my DMV mug shot would boost his self-esteem, thereby improving his mood. After all, for years a number of states have been using Pennsylvania driver’s license pictures as antidepressants.

My Ohio friends tell me that they have a somewhat humane DMV. They claim it is possible to get their license, complete with photo, at one place, on the same day. Coming from Pennsylvania, I find that hard to believe. The Q1regulations for our DMV were written by the Marquis de Sade and are enforced by refugees from Singapore. These cane-carrying curmudgeons are committed to carrying out arcane and complicated canons.

For instance, in Pennsylvania we must apply for our licenses at a police barracks. This isn’t a dormitory for cops, but a vast torture chamber where you wait in line to find out which line to wait in. Then you apply for your license and take a test. If you pass the test you are given a photo application, which you must then send off to Harrisburg, the state capital, and they will mail you (by U.S. Snail) notification of where you must get your photo taken. Invariably the place noted is the police barracks, where you started out to begin with.

It is my understanding that the employees who man the cameras are highly trained psychopaths with degrees from Libyan universities. It is their job to anticipate that exact second when their customers yawn, belch, grimace, blink—you get the picture. Unfortunately.

Marvin Stoltzfus actually smiled when he saw my picture. His ears, which were lined with more veins than my Aunt Clara’s legs, and almost as fuzzy as her cheeks, flushed pink with pleasure. He didn’t, however, become any nicer.

“It doesn’t show your weight here, or your height. How do I know it’s you?”

I sighed deeply. Then I obliged him by twisting my face into a grimace that would have put the fear of God into the devil himself. It was really rather easy to do, what with Lizzie Troyer’s supper to look forward to that night.

“All right.” He handed the license back. “Now what can I do for you?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m lost. I was looking for the telephone company. I need to pay a bill.” Of course, I instantly realized how stupid that was, considering he’d seen my Pennsylvania license.

And Marvin was no Melvin. “Care to try again, Miss Yoder?”

“There’s no defense like a good offense,” Susannah is fond of saying. Of course, she applies that philosophy to eligible men. But it seemed plausible that it could work on a Stoltzfus as well.

“I’m here to see you about the deaths of Yost Yoder and Levi Mast,” I said. “I have reason to believe that their deaths were not accidental, but murder. I demand that a thorough investigation be held.”

The ears began to flap slowly while he took that in. He motioned me to a hard plastic seat, which I took gratefully. Apparently Pauline’s pancakes were not as fluffy as they appeared.

“ ‘Demand’ is a strong word, Miss Yoder.” The ears flapped faster. “What are these reasons you have?” With a Stoltzfus it is always best to start with the obvious.

“Amish men don’t bathe in their milk tanks. Certainly not in February. In fact, never.

“And they don’t climb to the tops of their com silos in February either. Especially not on their wedding days. Of course, you should know all that, being a Stoltzfus.”

The ears went rigid. “I am a Methodist, Miss Yoder, not that it’s any of your business.”

I swallowed. “Well, back home Stoltzfus is an Amish or Mennonite name. Our chief of police is named Stoltzfus. A real nice guy too.” Okay, so that was an out-and-out lie. And yes, I feel guilty.

The ears began to twitch with excitement. “You mean Melvin Stoltzfus?”

“Yes. What a dear sweet man.” When it comes to guilt, it might as well be in for a penny, in for pound.

“Melvin is my first cousin!” He actually sounded proud.

“But you said you were a Methodist!”

“Oh, that. Mother’s second marriage was to a Methodist. After Daddy died—he ran away from home and became an elephant trainer for the Barnum and Bailey, and that’s where he met Mother—she married a Methodist minister. So that’s what I was raised.” He sounded proud of that too.

“I see. How did your daddy die?” I asked politely. Marvin slapped his cap back on his head, and in one swift movement scooped both of his ears back and tucked them inside. “He was stepped on by one of his elephants, not that this is any of your business either.”

I nodded with new understanding. To my credit, I didn’t ask Marvin what it was his mother did in the circus. It was clear though that, given his background, Marvin Stoltzfus knew nothing about the Amish and their methods of farming. And now that I understood the logic of the Pennsylvania DMV, it made perfect sense that he should be sheriff in a county largely populated by Amish.

I decided to switch tactics. “Were you involved in the Elsie Bontrager case?”

He looked at me defiantly. “Yes, of course I was.”

“Very interesting,” I said. “From what the Amish tell me, they never pressed charges.”

The ears must have shifted beneath the cap, because I thought I saw it move. “I didn’t say they pressed charges. I said I was involved in the case. You might say I was a mediator of sorts.”

“I see. Who asked you to mediate, the Amish or Daisybell Dairies?”

He stood up angrily. “Just who the hell are you to interrogate me?” He tapped his badge. “I am the law around here.”

I stood up slowly. “And I’m here visiting family. Amish family. Lots of them.”

As I said, he was smarter than his cousin Melvin. “The Amish don’t vote.”

“But the Mennonites do!” I said, and left.

It was a small victory. Farmersburg County has more Amish than it does Mennonites, and most of those Mennonites were from the German rather than the Swiss tradition. That is to say, they were Mennonite Mennonites, rather than Amish Mennonites, like me. I don’t blame you for being hopelessly confused, because I was hoping Marvin would be confused as well.

Now that I was actually in Farmersburg, I didn’t need directions to Daisybell Dairies. The gal from Goshen had neglected to tell me that in addition to being the largest building in Farmersburg, the factory was the only one with a thirty-foot Holstein cow in front of it.

“The statue is exactly twenty-one feet and three inches high, and twenty-eight feet and eleven inches long,” said Arnold Ledbetter, as we began our tour.

I gazed up at it appreciatively. “Concrete?”

“Fiberglas.”

Much to my surprise, my request for a tour of the factory had been immediately granted. Even more surprising was the fact that my guide was none other than the general manager, Arnold Ledbetter. As for the infamous Danny Hem, he was presumably at home. Apparently the gallivanting cad had taken the entire week off.

I studied the behemoth for a few more seconds. “Ahem, Mr. Ledbetter, I hate to tell you this, but your statue is anatomically incorrect.” I was referring to the fact that this cow, unlike normal bovines of the female persuasion, lacked teats. Nipples, for you city folks.

Arnold giggled salaciously. He was a mere snippet of a man, with a shock of black hair that seemed to grow only from the top of his head. I would have to ponder the genetic quirk responsible for that. His glasses were bottle-thick, but only half-moons, and those were top halves. He was every bit as interesting as the cow.

“Yes, well, she was originally fully endowed, but we had to saw them off because of a religious protest.”

I found that utterly ridiculous. “Mr. Ledbetter, the Amish see cows in their natural glory every day. I can’t believe they were offended by that.”

“Oh no, it wasn’t the Amish. It was the Baptists.”

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Oh well, to each their own.”

Arnold giggled again. “We filed them off in July. Half expected them to come back on the first cold night.”

I cast him my Sunday-school-teacher look. “Shall we continue the tour?”

“Yes, yes, step right this way.”

Arnold took me on a much more thorough tour than I had expected. Even Mama, who was a stickler for details, would have been overwhelmed at the amount of information Arnold threw my way. I must say that throughout it all I behaved gallantly, and like a lady. If my inner eyes glazed over after just a few minutes, Arnold never saw me looking bored through his top half-moons.

I will spare you an accounting of what I saw and learned, except for two important things. First, all the employees I saw that day were Englishers, and most probably Baptists. Second, the Swiss cheese produced by Daisybell Dairies—at least that offered to tourists as samples—is incredibly delicious. I had been expecting something that amounted to navel diggings, or even toe jam, but what I tasted that morning was both creamy and firm, and pocked with the requisite myriad of holes. The flavor was sweet and nutty, with just a hint of bite as an aftertaste. And that description holds true for each of the nine samples I tasted.

“Well, it’s been a pleasure, Miss Yoder, but I really must be going now,” said Arnold, as he snatched the sample plate from my hand.

“Yes, of course. Thank you again for the tour, Mr. Ledbetter. I found it all so interesting. However, I forgot to ask you one thing.”

“Yes?” He smiled patiently, but wisely held the sample plate out of my reach.

“What really did happen to Elsie Bontrager, and where is she now?”

“Ha ha!” It was almost a bark. “That was all a misunderstanding, I assure you. Miss Bontrager was a young, naive girl who misconstrued certain things. She was also mentally unbalanced. If I recall correctly, she had a nervous breakdown and has been sent off somewhere to recover.”

Arnold Ledbetter didn’t seem to realize that my arms were longer than his, and like a crane snatching up minnows, I managed to grab the six remaining samples before he could react.