“Is he malicious?”

“Bored. And horny-oops, pardon my Bulgarian.”

“Your Bulgarian?”

“Why should the French get all the credit for talking dirty? There have to be at least some Bulgarians who are vulgarians, not to be confused with the Vulgar Latin, of course.”

“Or with the very rude Cuban I dated two years ago. At any rate, Magdalena, it has crossed my mind that-well, this is going to sound paranoid, I’m sure-that your telephone might be bugged.”

It felt like ice water was being poured down the back of my dress. “Is that why you asked me to meet you here?”

He nodded. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. But I was already up here, and I’ve been watching carefully. We are alone.”

“Where are you parked?”

“Where else?”

“Ah, the woods. If only those woods could speak-on second thought, I’d have to cover my ears and run away.”

The chief laughed. “How do you think I feel on Saturday nights, playing nanny to a bunch of repressed kids who are finally out of their parents’ sight? You could cut the pheromones up here with a knife.”

“Back to my phone. Why do you think it might be bugged? Does it show up on some kind of machine?”

“No, I’ve got to admit that it’s just a hunch. But you’re a veritable clearinghouse of information, Magdalena. I know that if I was going to commit a crime of this magnitude in Hernia, I’d tap your phone.”

The chills down my spine were gone. “Well, I don’t feel that. Maybe it’s your phone that’s bugged. Have you checked? I mean taken it apart completely, etcetera? That’s such a handy word, isn’t it?”

As he shook his head, he colored considerably. “I did a quick sweep. Frankly, Magdalena, I’m overworked. That’s another thing I need to talk to you about: we need at least two more officers in the department. I can’t work twenty-four seven.”

“But we’re an itsy-bitsy traditional community, for crying out loud. Besides the Saturday-night crowd up here, what else do you have on your plate?”

The young whippersnapper had the temerity to laugh. “Good one! Let’s see. This morning Patricia Maron poured bleach on Margaret Cornwall’s mint patch, so it wouldn’t spread like it did last year and contaminate her phlox bed. I thought one or both were going to have heart attacks, they were so mad.”

“Patty’s a Baptist from Punxsutawney and Marge is a Methodist from Scranton.”

“That explains it?”

“Uh-maybe not entirely. And yes, I know, Nixon was a Quaker, but you know what I mean.”

“Not exactly. Anyway, yesterday Delphina Wilder thought she had an intruder in her basement, and she did, but it turned out to be a possum.”

“Delphina is from suburban New Jersey and has Lutheran forebears.”

“ Magdalena, you sound disturbingly prejudiced.”

“Moi? I assure you that’s simply not so. But just look around you, dear. In the old days, as far as the eyes could see, this was Amish and Mennonite territory. The Plain People, we called ourselves. Now most of the Mennonites have gone fancy-except for Beechy Grove-and the Amish are beginning to sell their farms to outsiders because they can get cheaper land, and more of it, down south. I’m just saying that there is something to be said for having a homogeneous population.”

“I once dated a brilliant gay man, but to be absolutely frank, I prefer them more on the dumb side. Anyway, my point is that there is a whole lot more to this job than one person can handle. Were I to-uh-not sign up for another year, you’d be hard put to replace me.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

The poor man is without guile, so he looked me straight in the eyes. “I’m sorry. It is. What else can I say?”

“Okay already, get those calf eyes off me before I cave in and double your salary as well.”

“As well as a deputy?”

“Just the deputy. Now, look away, ding-dang it.”

“I can’t, because I’m giving you the look.”

“Forsooth, dear, that’s what I’m objecting to-although it’s getting a mite tiresome trying to get the point across.”

The chief rolled his expressive peepers up before training them off my beady little pair. “I forget that you don’t watch TV. That means you haven’t seen the look Larry David dishes out on Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

I checked the nursing blanket and saw that my modesty was still intact. One other possibility sprang to mind.

“I don’t have any boogers hanging out, do I?”

“No-do I? See, Magdalena? You always get me off track. I’m giving you the look because of the key you swiped from my desk. And don’t even try to deny it, because that will just waste both of our time, and I have to go talk some sense into old Tom Arnold before he shoots Connie Betz’s dog. And here I thought you were supposed to be a peaceful people.”

“Tom is Church of God, originally from Akron, and you have to admit that Connie’s dog makes an incredible amount of racket every day at sundown. So, how did you know it was me who borrowed that key?”

Chris sucked air through his flawless teeth in a gesture of genuine concern. “You’re going to hate this.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. I am a native Hernian, a Mennonite born and bred, although not bred to a Mennonite, as I am not a cow or any other sort of animal.”

“When I went over to Sam’s to get the cream for your tea, I found him staring at you through a pair of binoculars.”

I leaped to my feet with so much force that my suckling babe-if I may use such a provocative term-was dislodged. As a result, Little Jacob went from being an unobtrusive third party to the center of attention. Come to think of it, the ensuing din might have been my saving grace, because I actually called Sam a doo-doo head-maybe even several times. Never in my life have I sunk to such a low level of vitriolic verbiage. Potty Mouth should have been my middle name, not Portulaca.

It took a good ten minutes to calm everyone down, and some of us were still less calm than others. “Just wait until I get my hands around his scrawny neck,” I said through gritted teeth.

22

“I thought you were a pacifist,” Chief Chris Ackerman said.

“Indeed I am, but these are extenuating circumstances, are they not?”

“So you get to pick and choose? Honestly, Magdalena, you sound just like everyone else; I’m really disappointed.”

“But I’m only human!” I don’t mean to be immodest, but my cry of distress rang out over the surrounding valleys of the southern Alleghenies like the rumble of approaching thunder.

“Be careful, Magdalena; that eerie sound you’re making might wake the dead.”

“Then, boy, are we in for a lot of trouble. It might surprise you to learn that not everyone buried here-those that knew me, I mean-found me to be as delightful as you originally did.” I emitted more distressing sounds for good measure.

“Oh, all right, I’ll give you what you want: I still find you delightful. Compared to most Hernians, you’re a breath of fresh air.”

“Thank you. Now tell me, why aren’t you angry that I took the key?”

“Because I trust your instincts, Miss Yoder. I figured that if you thought it was important enough to swipe, then it must have been. By the way, I have to say that it was very clever of you to spontaneously substitute one of your own keys for the one Minerva left me. As you might have guessed, I didn’t discover the switch until I got all the way out there to the Land of the Weird and Godforsaken Sinkholes. In order to gain access to Miss Jay’s house, I had to get both a court order and a locksmith, and they were a waste of time and money; you won’t find anything useful to the investigation there.”

“Perhaps this breath of fresh air will see things through fresh eyes.”

“Like I said; you’re delightful.”

I sighed heavily. “Alas and alack, our seven suspects don’t share your sentiments.”

“They hate your guts?”