Tamar Myers - Batter off Dead

I waved at the uncles as I zoomed past them, and then I abruptly squealed to a stop in front of Agnes’s back door. The uncles fled like a pair of wild albino chimpanzees, but Wanda and Agnes struggled to be the first to reach me. Wanda, being a good deal thinner-and meaner, I might add-made it through the kitchen door first.

“Don’t listen to a word she says, Magdalena. I don’t know anything about this case; I was just going on a hunch. Don’t you have a saying about that?”

“Hunching is not good for your back,” I said. “If you don’t believe me, just ask that fellow at Notre Dame.”

“Remind me to laugh, Magdalena. Honestly, I don’t know why people say you’re such a wit.”

“They do? Well, if so, they’re wrong by half.”

By then Agnes had squeezed through her own kitchen door and caught enough breath to speak. “Tell her everything, Wanda, just like you told me.”

When Wanda recoils, her beehive hairdo shoots like a launched rocket ship. “Nobody-and I mean nobody-tells Wanda Hemphopple what to do.”

“Fine, then I’ll tell her myself. You see, Magdalena, Wanda here has been having an affair with-”

“I was having a late cup of coffee after closing hours when Chief Ackerman happened to stop by.”

“What time was that?” I interjected.

“Three-maybe three thirty. Anyway, he looked really tired, and like he could use some coffee as well, so I let him in. That’s when he told me about Elias Whitmore and the steamroller.”

“Just like that? He’s a policeman, for crying out loud; he can’t be spilling the beans to civilians.”

“And what are you, Magdalena, an officer of the law?”

“There’s something dripping from your chin, Wanda. Here, let me give you a tissue.”

She actually reached for it, but Agnes intervened at the last second. “She’s being sarcastic as well. Ladies, we’re wasting precious time. Wanda, tell her what else happened so that we can get on with it.”

Wanda sighed like a teenager when asked to clean up her room. “Okay, just don’t be so pushy. Anyway, it didn’t exactly happen just like that. Maybe I fudged just a little. But he did come in for coffee, and he was asking questions, like had I seen anything unusual drive by, on account of the Sausage Barn sits right on the main road into Hernia. And I said that as a matter of fact, I had. When I was locking up the garbage cans after closing-you gotta do that, or else the raccoons will get in-I heard kind of a roar, and I looked up, and there was this flatbed with a steamroller on it, just flying by.”

“Did you get a good look at the driver?”

“Only a glimpse. He was wearing a hat-like a baseball cap. And he was real short. Or maybe he was slumping. So even if he’d been driving slowly, there wouldn’t have been anything to see.”

“What time was this? I need to know exactly.”

“Sometime between eleven thirty and twelve.”

“And then after you told the Chief what you saw, he told you about Elias?”

“Not right away. First he had a good cry in booth eight. Then I served him a piece of cinnamon apple pie à la mode, and then he told me about Mr. Whitmore. He said it would be on the news anyway the next day, so what was the point of holding back? Nice boy, that chief. If I was ten years younger-no, make that fifteen-”

“You’re married, Wanda, and Chris bats for a different team. Besides, aren’t you having an affair?”

“Oh, right, my affair with Mr. Sudoku. Unlike Miss Fecund at forty-eight, here, I’m already going through menopause, and I’m only forty-seven. A lot of nights I have trouble sleeping, so I sit up and amuse myself with Sudoku. I’ve gotten really hooked.”

“You’re seeing a Japanese gentleman?”

“Why, Magdalena, you sound almost jealous.”

“Curious, that’s all. Where did you meet this gentleman?”

Wanda and Agnes both laughed. I could tell that it was at my expense, so I decided to laugh along with them. In fact, I may have outdone them, because not only did I get several dogs to howl, but the Bontragers’ donkey began to bray.

“That ass has always had a thing for me,” I said.

“He’s probably smarter than you,” Wanda said. “Sudoku isn’t a person; it’s a type of puzzle. Sort of like a crossword, but with numbers.”

“Oh, that,” I said. “I’ve seen those books for sale at Pat’s IGA. Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Ladies,” Agnes hissed, “let’s get back to Mr. Whitmore’s murder.”

“Indeed,” I said. “But frankly, Agnes, I fail to see why you called me over. I already knew that a steamroller was involved, and since Wanda couldn’t identify the driver of the flatbed…” I let my voice trail off.

“The driver was a woman,” Wanda snarled.

“Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere; my ellipse was eclipsed by an assertion! On what do you base that, Wanda?”

“Because what I didn’t tell you was that I barely made it to the garbage cans in time. There was a family of raccoons crossing the road, single file, just as that flatbed roared by. They were all in the opposite lane by then, except for the last little cub. Whoever was driving that flatbed swerved just the tiniest bit, to keep from hitting it. A woman would have done that.”

Agnes gasped. “Wanda, now I’m surprised. That’s very sexist of you. Are you saying a man would have hit the cub?”

“No, I’m only saying that a woman would not have hit it. We’re nurturers. Why, even Magdalena has a maternal side.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Do you really believe that a woman, on her way to squash a man with a steamroller, would swerve to avoid hitting a raccoon?”

“It was a baby. It was cute. And it’s called compartmentalization, Miss Smarty Pants. Besides, she screamed something out the window as well. It was a woman’s voice, so there!”

“Agnes,” I said, “aren’t there times when you just want to take Wanda and shake some sense into her?”

“Boy, I’ll say. Wanda, did you recognize the voice?”

“No. Don’t you think I would have told you that?”

And then just like that, I had all the pieces to the puzzle. “Ladies-and naked gents hovering in the distance-I must bid adieu, for duty calls.”

“What?” Wanda said. “You know I don’t speak Spanish.”

Despite her size, Agnes could move with lightning speed, and she managed to grab my arm before I could hoof it back to my car. “Not so fast, Magdalena. You’re on to something, and we demand to know to what.”

“Yeah,” Wanda said. “After what you put us through last time, we have a right to know.”

“More than that,” Agnes said, gripping my arm even tighter, “we have a right to come along.”

“And what exactly do you mean?” I said.

“We were your Ethel Mertzes in your last shenanigans: when you hoisted your mother-in-law onto a cow and sent it crashing off through the woods. You put our lives on the line that night-chasing down an armed couple-but I must say, it was the single most thrilling thing that ever happened to me.”

“Who is Ethel Mertz?” I asked, and quite reasonably, I may add. My parents, Old Order Mennonites both, never watched a single television program in their lives. I, however, have yielded to temptation and viewed a few of the older comedies, the one referenced among them. I must say, however, that the finest show ever produced was Green Acres.

“Uh, Magdalena,” Wanda grunted, “you’re helplessly conservative. There’s no sin in watching old TV shows such as I Love Lucy.”

“That wouldn’t be Lucifer, would it?”

“She’s trying to stall,” Agnes said. “If she can succeed in making you blow your stack, then maybe you won’t want to come with her.”