28

My blood froze. I know that’s just a figure of speech, and I have a tendency to embroider mine at times, but I’m not exaggerating now-well, sort of almost not. It really did feel like I had icicles in my veins. But at the same time, my frozen limbs were anything but stiff; my legs, for instance, felt like they’d been sculpted from whipped butter. (Although, to be honest, it’s very hard to determine whether or not these feelings are accurate. I have never actually had even one leg sculpted from whipped butter, and seldom, if ever, do I insert icicles in my veins.)

“Oh my gracious, oh my soul,” I said. “There goes Alice down the hole.”

“Where?” Olivia, aka Melvin, glanced around the parlor. His panic was practically palpable, just like my shock.

“It’s just a kid’s rhyme,” I said. “I couldn’t think of what else to say, and since I’m never speechless, something had to slip out.”

“Yeah, you’ve got a tongue that can cut cheese. But this time, Yoder, I outsmarted you. Admit it.”

“I will admit nothing to you!” There is a theory that cold water boils faster than warm. It may not be true, but the ice in my veins had turned to steam in a matter of seconds. “You killed Amy, didn’t you?”

“She was a nosy girl who deserved what was coming to her.”

“She was a young girl just getting started in life.”

“Boo-hoo. Your sister rots in jail and you waste emotion on a kid from the wrong side of the tracks?”

“And what side would that be? We don’t even have tracks in Hernia!”

“You want to get riled up about someone, Yoder, get riled up about Mary Berkey. Now there was a fine woman-good breeding hips on her too. It was a shame she had to go.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. The evil man was making a full confession, but there were no witnesses besides Yours Truly. My kingdom for a tape recorder. Or even just a number two pencil!

“Why did she have to go?” I said, as I edged for the back door. “She wasn’t nosy. She had nothing to do with the bank robbery.”

I’d already figured out that Melvin had been one of the three armed robbers. If he could convincingly pass himself off as a matron from the Garden State for several days running, pulling off the role of a hit-and-run Amish man must have been a piece of cake. (In for the penny, in for the pound of makeup, it seemed.) As much as I hate to admit it, his ability to disguise himself had kept him a free man for past five years.

Melvin pulled his wig back into place before answering. “Yeah, too bad. Mary was a class act. And with all those kids to support. How many were there? A dozen?”

“Six,” I hissed.

“Yeah. She ought to have thought about them a little more and a little less about what I was up to.”

I was flabbergasted. “So it’s her fault that she’s dead.”

“Yeah, basically. For starters, she should have refused to make you that silly outfit that you’ve got on now. Don’t think you fooled anyone, Yoder. You look like the Halloween version of a Beverly Lewis book cover.”

I thought I heard footsteps in the kitchen. In any case it was to my advantage to keep the kook yammering on as long as I could.

“I didn’t think that you could read, Melvin, and just so you know, this outfit happens to be very authentic. You said ‘for starters. ’ What else did she do to irritate you?”

“What do you think, idiot? She saw through this getup! Well, not exactly this getup, because she made me strip down to my bra and panties when she measured me for my Amish dress.”

“Your Amish dress?”

“Pretty smart, huh? Local banks might be suspicious of Amish men for a while, but no one would suspect an Amish woman. And I have you to thank for it, Yoder. You’re the one who put the idea in my head.”

“And here I thought it was impenetrable.”

“But Mary had to go and ruin it, on account of she had eyes like a hawk.”

“On either side of her head?”

“And all because she saw my hairy chest. Somehow that got her attention right away. It was like she got fixated on them.”

“Three hairs will do that to a gal. Trust me, four hairs and she would have swooned.”

“Very funny, Yoder. No need to remind me why I hate you so much.” He reached down the front of his frumpy frock and pulled out a pistol, which he aimed at my head.

“But, Melykins, I’m your flesh-and-blood sister, remember? Our birth mother, Elvina, was quite sure of the gory details. And if that’s not enough, please cogitate on the fact that I am the only sister-and friend-of your darling wife, Susannah.”

I’ve often (quite unkindly, I admit) likened Melvin to a praying mantis because of his bulging eyes, which operate independently of each other. I was wrong; I should have compared him to a chameleon-one from the island of Madagascar. That’s because apparently he did cogitate, and while he did, the longest tongue I’d ever seen came slithering out between slightly parted and extremely pointed teeth. This serpentlike appendage proceeded to lick his dry lips and clean crusted bits of lunch from the corners of his mouth before slithering back into its den.

“Does Jack Hanna know where you are?” I said. Sometimes I just can’t help myself.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Was that a put-down?”

“Is a put-down like a touchdown? Does it count for, or against, me?” One can always be hopeful, can’t one?

“I’m going to put you down, Yoder, and Susannah’s never going to know that I did it. Now move!”

I read somewhere that one should never, ever go with a gunman. Apparently the odds are that what happens after abduction is invariably worse than what would happen if one tried to make a break for it while at the original site of the crime. After all, it is extremely hard to hit a moving target. This is excellent advice, but it’s better suited to areas other than small Victorian parlors.

Much to my dismay the chameleon was able to move with lightning speed. I felt the barrel of the gun against my back while in midlunge. By the time my size elevens hit the ground, I was indisputably his prisoner and his temper was nowhere to be found.

“Now you’ve done it, Yoder. Any mercy I might have shown you at the last minute, you just threw away.”

I could definitely hear someone else moving about in the house. Was that a chair scraping in the dining room?

“I can’t believe you used to be the chief of police,” I said, speaking just as loud as I dared. “When folks were in trouble, they would call the police, and that was you.”

“Shut up, Yoder, and get moving.” He used the gun barrel to push me toward the dining room door.

I needed no additional prodding. Perhaps if I stumbled in the doorway, whoever was in the room would see the gun and might think fast enough to make a run for it. Or I could just fall backward on top of Melvin. After all, he was a spindly thing, mostly arms, legs, and misshapen head-not to be unkind. My overly active brain came up with other scenarios as well (some of them far-fetched, one even involving duct tape), but before I even reached the ding dang door, it was opened from the other side.

“Tiny Timms!” I couldn’t help but gasp. Her presence was literally a godsend, because I had been praying for deliverance. Since the Good Lord sent an angel to shut the mouths of lions for Daniel, it seemed perfectly logical to me that He would send a small but big-busted woman to help me fight a chameleon.

Tiny smiled. “Hello, Miss Yoder. Hello, Olivia.”

“Yinz are wearing out my name,” I said, whilst gesturing madly with my eyes. Unfortunately my eyes neither bulge nor swivel dramatically in all directions; hence, any gestures I make with them are somewhat limited. And since Tiny was not an astute enough observer of regional dialects to pick up on my uncharacteristic usage of Pittsburghese (I never say “yinz” unless compensation is involved), I was unable to warn her of the sure and present danger behind me.