“Excuse me?”

“I hate to speak ill of the dead, Magdalena, but Minerva J. Jay was Jezebel, Delilah, and Mata Hari rolled up in one very large package. I’m ashamed to say that no heterosexual man could possibly have resisted her.”

“You don’t mean-you do mean! Doc, how could you?”

“It was years ago, Magdalena. I was a much younger man, maybe just in my mid-sixties. I was still practicing veterinary medicine. At any rate, she brings in this stray kitten that’s been hanging around her garbage can. The poor thing has a broken leg that needs to be set, and even though large farm animals are my specialty, I do it. She asks me how much, and I say five dollars, on account of I don’t know what else to charge for something I’ve rarely, if ever, done. Then she notices I have a huge pile of paperwork in my so-called office and volunteers to help out-just for an hour or two on weekends.”

“I don’t remember that!” I could practically feel my blue eyes turn the color of Irish moss.

“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, Magdalena; it didn’t last long. She thought she noticed a bit of laxness in the way I reported my taxes and she threatened to go to the IRS.”

“Unless what?”

“Unless we did the mattress mambo, as you so quaintly put it.”

“You didn’t! I mean, how could you possibly perform the bedroom bossa nova with someone who was trying to blackmail you?”

Doc recoiled in genuine surprise. “I’m a man, Magdalena. More important, I’m a mortal-unlike someone in this room.”

I sighed. “Sorry. That really wasn’t any of my business. Anyway, Doc, Minerva was killed by a lethal combination of legal medications that somehow got into her bloodstream via our pancakes. Since only seven members of the Beechy Grove Mennonite Church Brotherhood were stationed in the kitchen that day, it stands to reason that one of them is responsible. Right?”

He nodded slowly. “Were the drugs altered in any way by heat? I mean, is there any chance Minerva downed them herself?”

“No, they were in fact cooked in the pancake batter.”

“And nobody else had access to the kitchen?”

“The volunteer servers pretty much stayed in the fellowship hall and the platters were passed back and forth through the door. This saved a lot of bumping into one another. However, we did allow quick passage through the kitchen to those who were desperate to use the restrooms.”

“Well, then I’d say-”

“But Doc, my kitchen volunteers were too busy mixing batter, frying, and flipping to have put up with anyone coming close enough to drop anything in those big aluminum bowls.”

“In that case, I’d have to say-”

“But they think I’m being unfair, that I’m not widening the investigation enough. So they scheduled an intervention lunch! Can you believe that? Meanwhile, I thought I was going there to put the screws to the Zug wives, since I can’t seem to make heads nor tails of their husbands.”

“Where was the intervention?”

“Wanda Hemphopple’s Sausage Barn. Just before I came here.”

“So you’d already eaten. I knew that lactating animals had increased appetites, but-”

“No, I didn’t eat; the whole thing was a bust. Literally. You see, Merle Waggler split his pants. Unfortunately, he goes about without skivvies, so were all able to see that it would be more appropriate if he was named Wiggler, rather than Waggler. Other than that, it was a waste of time.”

Doc chuckled briefly. “Who called this meeting?”

“Apparently the handsome young Elias Whitmore.”

“Pardon me? What did you say?”

“What do you mean?”

“You called this young fellow handsome.”

“I most certainly did not!”

“I may be losing some of my hearing, Magdalena, but I’m getting better at reading lips. Besides, you look practically smitten with him.”

“What a silly thing to say!”

“Yeah, well I’ve got a bad feeling about this kid; I’ve never liked him.”

“How come?”

“That house of his up on Buffalo Mountain, for one thing.”

“But it’s beautiful!”

“It’s crap.” Doc was at liberty to cuss, having freed himself from all religious strictures the day he joined the Marines back in the Civil War-or whenever that was.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Wrong with it? For one thing, it ruins the view from on top of Stucky Ridge. You’re not supposed to be able to see any houses on top of the mountain from up there. Nada. Not a one. And then there’s the noise. All that Holy Roller Christian rock music that kid plays, and the car lights bobbing back and forth. You can’t tell me there aren’t drugs being bought and sold.”

“You’re equating Christian rock with drugs?”

“Uh-well, no. But face it, Magdalena, these young people today have the morals of alley cats.”

“Meow?”

“Touché. But I still think this kid’s bad news, and if he’s the one who organized the so-called intervention, then I say focus your investigation on him. He’s trying to divert your attention away from the fact that he’s the one who murdered Minerva J. Jay.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Doc, if I recall correctly, you predicted that a moon landing would lead to the moon veering out of orbit, and that it would most probably head to Earth and kill us all within two years.”

“Yeah, but ‘one swallow doth not a summer make.’ William Wordsworth, by the way.”

“Yes, but he was misquoting Aristotle, who said ‘one swallow does not make a spring’-of course not in English.”

Doc grunted. “And you wonder why I find you so dang attractive. Now’s your chance, Magdalena. Get rid of that interloper from out of state, then marry me. With your looks and brains, and my life experience-the world would be our oyster.”

“You wouldn’t need oysters, Doc-not with your libido. And in any case, I couldn’t keep up. You were born into the wrong culture; you should be living someplace where you could have a harem.”

“Hmm, maybe I’ll look into that. More pound cake and strawberries?”

“Thanks, but no. If I’m going to put the screws to Elias this afternoon, I need to get home and feed Little Jacob.”

“You can feed him here if you like.”

“Doc, he’s nursing. Feeding him here would be like waving a flank steak in front of a lion.”

Doc sighed. “Perhaps you have a point.”

I jumped up and gave him a kiss on top of his hoary, horny head. Immediately after that I scooped up the joy of my life and skedaddled while the going was good. I knew from experience that Doc would refuse help with the dishes, and that me lingering any longer would simply be torture for the man with the iron willy.

There is no satisfactory way to explain marital separation to a child. Alison, as was her right, jumped to conclusions, just as quickly as I tend to do. Although I view my sudden leaps as a form of exercise, and thus defend them vigorously, I felt responsible for Alison’s frame of mind. Especially since she came down on my side of the finish line.

“I’m never going to forgive him,” she said.

“You what?”

“How can I? He didn’t just walk away from ya, Mom; he walked away from me too. And my baby brother.”

“But I’m sure that wasn’t his intent; he just needed to get away from me for a while. He’ll be back to see you two all the time. Or you can go over there.”

“Yeah? Then why didn’t he come to school and tell me that?”

“Because it just happened this morning. He hasn’t had time to think it through.”

“Ya always defend him, Mom. Ya know that?”

“Well, maybe that’s because he’s a good man.”

“Then how come ya treat him like a baby?”

“I most certainly do not!”

Alison has shot up in the last year, so that now at five foot seven, while still as thin as a rotisserie spit, she can do a decent job of looking me in the eye. Her eyes, by the way, are a light Caribbean blue. One of my guests once described them as the color of a Paraiba tourmaline. When she trains those eyes on you, you realize that it’s not a matter of if you’ll get around to seeing things her way, but when.