I scurried over to the stove to tell her to put a lid on it, before someone else did. But before I could even open my mouth,
Susannah opened hers even wider. What seconds before had been keening was now genuine screaming. I'm sure that at first I was the only one who could tell the difference.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around. "What is it?"
Susannah wrenched free and faced the pot again, her screams louder than ever. Then she began to gesticulate wildly at the pot, almost as if she were trying to do the breaststroke. Perhaps there was something about the pot that was not quite right. I bent over and examined its contents closely. Then it was all I could do to keep from screaming myself.
There, blinking up at me, totally covered with chocolate and peanut butter, was Shnookums. His little mouth was open too, and he would have been screaming as well, except that it was clogged with peanut butter.
Without even thinking, I yanked the pot off the burner and dumped its contents into the sink. Then I turned on the cold- water faucet as far as it would go and aimed the sprayer hose at the half-cooked canine. Susannah, in the meantime, had fainted.
Fortunately, Billy Dee managed to grab her before she had a chance to slump over the stove.
'What the hell is going on now?" Jeanette demanded.
"Go away!" I snapped. The cold water wasn't doing much to dissolve the hot goo from the dog's coat. I switched to warm.
Jeanette pushed into my space. "What the hell is that? I demand to know. My God, it's a rat!" she shrieked. She too began to faint, but when nobody made a move to catch her, she revived in time to brace herself against the sink.
"This is not a rat!" I shouted, so that everyone could hear. "This is Shnookums, my sister's dog."
Linda gasped, and although my back was turned, I'm sure she tried her hand at fainting too. "First spiders," I heard her say, "and now rats. I'm calling the board of health myself."
Just about then, I stuck my finger in the little dog's mouth and dislodged a glob of peanut butter. Immediately I heard
Shnookums wheeze, and then his little chest began to move up and down. Seconds later he was revived enough to get loose with the most pitiful yowl I have ever heard. Even I felt sorry for the matted mutt.
"It is a dog!" I heard Lydia say.
"Rats can sound like that too," Jeanette and Linda said together.
Susannah had, by then, regained consciousness and was struggling to her feet. Billy Dee, ever the gentle- man, was concerned that she might collapse again and was trying to coax her to remain prone. "Please lie still, Miss Entwhistle," he begged.
"You're paler than a Yankee come February."
"Let me go!" she screamed. "That's my baby over there!"
At the sound of his mistress's voice, Shnookums began to wail even louder.
Reluctantly Billy Dee helped Susannah to her feet and walked her over to the sink. By then I had managed to do a fair job of cleaning the canine, and he bore at least a faint resemblance to Shnookums. Of course, any small animal, dog or cat, looks half their size when wet. Frankly, I've seen rats twice the size of the soggy Shnookums.
"See! It is a rat!" shrieked Jeanette. "It fell right from the ceiling into the pot. God knows what all we'll be eating tonight."
"I think I'm going to be sick," moaned Linda. Susannah grabbed her baby out of my hands and held him to her face for close inspection. He continued to wail. She began planting kisses allover his tiny body. He wailed even louder.
"I think you'd best take him to the vet," suggested Billy Dee.
Now Susannah began to wail. "My baby, my poor little baby, and it's all your fault."
I think she meant me. After all, it had been my idea that she cook something for supper. Of course she wasn't being fair, but this was no time to point it out.
"I'll get our coats and then we're heading straight for Doc Shafer," I said calmly. "Lydia, would you mind seeing to it that supper gets on the table and everyone gets a chance to eat? Mr. Grizzle, would you please call Dr. Shafer and tell him we're coming? I think he closes at six. His number is by the phone at the front desk."
Papa would have been proud of me for my level-headedness. I think I got that quality from him. Anyway, acting calm in a crisis and delegating responsibility seem to come naturally to me, except when something really serious comes along, like being shot at.
Papa always used to say I should become a manager and manage something, like a business or an organization. Susannah, on the other hand, says I should manage my own business. Mama probably agreed more with Susannah than with Papa, but she was too gentle ever to say such a thing.
While Susannah and Shnookums wailed, I calmly drove them to Doc Shafer's, who lives six miles on the other side of
Hernia. Old Doc is primarily a farm vet, whose specialty is delivering breech births in cows. Doc has been treating our livestock since before I was born. In recent years, however, his arthritis has prevented his getting down on his knees and reaching up the birth canal of a Holstein, so he's shifted his focus to treating pets.
"Evening, ladies," said Doc cheerfully. Neither Susannah nor Shnookums were at all coherent, so I filled Doc in on all the details. "I immediately got the chocolate mixture off and rinsed him with cool water," I concluded.
"You did fine, Magdalena. I always said you would have made a good veterinarian."
I felt myself blushing. By and large I get fewer compliments than Saddam Hussein. "Thanks, Doc. Are the bums bad?"
He shook his head. "As far as I can tell, mostly first degree. With these smaller breeds, the problem is shock as much as anything else. What I'd like to do is give him a sedative and keep him overnight for observation. But I think he'll be as good as new by tomorrow."
You would have thought I'd plopped her pooch in a bun and smeared him with mustard the way Susannah carried on. "I won't leave without my baby!" she screamed. "My baby! My precious little itsy-bitsy baby! My Shnookums Wookums!" I had never, ever seen an adult woman carry on that way. If she had been a character in a movie or a book, someone would have slapped her silly to get her to stop. Although I doubt if it would have done any good.
"What you really need to do is give Susannah a sedative," I couldn't help saying.
"I could give her a shot of something to calm her down," Doc agreed. He gestured at the rows of bottles on the shelves behind him.
"Would that be legal?" I asked hopefully. "I mean, I don't want to be doing anything wrong."
Old Doc smiled. "I'll be eighty-two next month. If they take my license away, I'll retire. So, who are you going to trust, me or the legislators?"
I thought for a second about Garrett Ream, and decided to choose Doc. It was either that or leave Susannah with him for the night. I simply did not have the energy to sit up with her screaming all night.
"Stick it to her," I said.
Susannah never saw it coming, but undoubtedly she felt it. But only for a second. Almost immediately her screams faded to sobs, and then weak little whimpers. Amazingly, Shnookums quieted down too, and soon it would have been impossible to tell, had I been wearing a blindfold, which sound was coming from whom.
"Are you sure she'll be all right?"
"She'll sleep like a baby. Actually, maybe more like a lamb. That was my best sheep tranquilizer."
"Thanks, Doc."
"Say," he began almost shyly, "I've got some baked ham and scalloped potatoes in the back. I don't suppose you'd join me for supper?"
Doc's wife, the former Anna Speicher, had been dead for seventeen years. In the old days, Mama used to invite Doc to stay for supper all the time. Daddy use to tease Mama and say it was because Doc was easy on the eyes, but I'm sure it was more than that. Mama had a soft spot for anyone who was lonely or needy, and besides which, Anna Speicher Shafer and Mama were third cousins. Even without any "removeds."
So when old Doc returned the favor, it didn't take me long to accept. Especially not after I let a quick vision of the bunch back at the PennDutch flit across my brain. "What about Susannah?" I asked.
"She'll be just fine on the sofa in there. That way we can keep an eye on her vital signs for a while before you take her home."
He put the now quiet Shnookums in a cage and I helped him get Susannah to the couch. Then Doc and I settled down and had a good old-fashioned meal, like the kind we were meant to eat. In addition to the ham and scalloped potatoes, Doc served up green beans with bacon, dried com pudding, and rhubarb-strawberry pie. Both the rhubarb and the beans, he confessed, had been canned last spring.
"Do you eat like this all the time?" I asked in amazement. Doc waited until he had swallowed a bite of freshly baked roll dripping with butter before he answered. "Guess I have to. I live to eat, and if the eating's not worthwhile, I may as well just give up and die."
"Some people say they just eat to live," I countered.
Old Doc snorted. "Then they're sick."
"Pardon me?"
"It's a fact, at least with animals. If something doesn't like to eat, chances are it's sick."
"Pass the ham, please," I said quickly, proving I was healthy as a horse.
Doc smiled approvingly. "Makes my heart glad to see a woman eat like that, Magdalena. It's a sure sign of passion, you know."
Somehow I doubted it. "Look, Doc, I have to ask you something."
"Then ask away." The old geezer was waving a spoon full of scalloped potatoes seductively in front of me. Of course, then it all made sense. Old Doc must have been sweet on Mama too, and Mama had made Roseanne Barr look like a barrette.
I ignored the proffered spuds. "It's this, Doc. I suppose you've already heard about the woman who took a tumble out at the inn." He nodded.
"Well, Chief Myers says it might have been an accident, and it might have been foul play. But if it was an accident, Doc, I could be sued for everything I've got. I might even lose the inn!"
"Says who?"
"Well, Melvin Stoltzfus, for one."
Doc snorted. "That boy couldn't find his way south from the North Pole. It seems to me, Magdalena, that you'd really have a problem if the other scenario was true."
"You mean that nobody would want to stay at a place where someone had been killed?"
"That might come later. But for now, I'd say your biggest worry should be that you just might have a killer staying at the inn."
"You mean now?"
Doc's look was all the answer I needed. Melvin, move over. Why hadn't I seen the ramifications myself? "Why didn't Chief
Myers make that a bit clearer to me?" I asked, as soon as I could speak.
"What? And spoil a perfectly good fishing trip?" asked Doc. He didn't sound like he was kidding.
I temporarily hoped that Tammy Myers not only stood too near Niagara Falls, but that she managed to pull the Chief in with her when she fell. I filled Doc in on a number of things.
Doc listened intently, but he seemed to be most interested in Jumbo Jim's Fried Chicken and Seafood Palace. "How much is a bucket of extra crispy?" he asked, interrupting my narrative.
"Too much to go driving two hundred and fifty miles for," I snapped.
"Easy, girl, easy," said Doc. "I sense I've hit a nerve. How long did you talk to this guy?"
"I'll let you know when I get my phone bill."
"That long, huh?" Doc sounded like he just might be jealous.
"And he called me once, but I was out," I said just to be nasty.
"How did he get your number?" Doc was definitely jealous.
"Beats me. Susannah took the message. Say, Doc, do you want to hear the rest of what's been going on, or not?"
"Sure," said Doc. "Anyway, Baltimore is a long ways away. You won't be hearing from this guy again."
I ignored Doc's last comment and proceeded to tell him how I had found the fire escape door open, and that the trunk of
Miss Brown's car had been broken into. Of course, I pointed out, it was possible, even probable, that neither of those things had anything to do with Miss Brown's becoming intimate with my impossibly steep stairs.
"Nonetheless, do you want me coming back to stay the night?" Doc asked kindly.
I declined the offer. What possible protection could I an eighty-two-year-old Lothario provide? I thanked Doc for the bounteous supper and politely but firmly refused a good-night kiss.
Susannah snoozed all the way home and wasn't any trouble at all. When I got back to the inn, Billy Dee was the only one still up, and I enlisted his help in carting Susannah off to bed. Then, as a reward, I made a pot of hot chocolate and invited Billy