Arthur then nodded at Steven. Steven shrugged and seemed to approach the two men warily. Again we couldn't hear the conversation, but whatever Steven said was effective. In no time at all, the three men were slapping each other's backs in what is apparently some sort of male-bonding ritual. Peace had been restored.
At least until DarIa Strutt made her entrance. I don't watch movies, but Susannah does, and suddenly it was crystal-clear who Susannah was patterning her life after. At five foot four, DarIa Strutt was five inches shorter than Susannah, and a good ten years older, but otherwise they might have been twins. Like Susannah, DarIa Strutt flowed into the room trailing yards of fabric. Unlike Susannah, DarIa Strutt carried her little pooch, Fifi, out in the open. In her arms, the way God intended.
"Mommy, it's her!" shrieked little Sherri Hall, who had been sitting quietly in a comer with her mother despite Rip's somewhat dramatic entrance. The pudgy prepubescent girl jumped off her chair and rushed the swirling star.
Like Susannah, DarIa Strutt rolled her eyes in annoyance and stamped an unseen foot. "Arthur, must we have a child on the set? Children can be so tedious, you know."
Norah Hall sprang into action like a tigress who had seen her cub threatened. "Sherri is not tedious! And she's not a child! She's a very talented young lady who's going places."
"Off this set, if I have my way," snapped DarIa Strutt.
"Hit it!" cried Norah reflexively.
"Like a virgin," crooned Sherri, but without the bobbing foil cones, it just wasn't the same.
"Arthur! I demand that they be banned from the set!"
But Arthur Lapata was so engrossed in conversation with a sound technician that he couldn't hear DarIa Strutt's demands. Don did, however. Like a big hairy dog, he was allover her, except instead of barking, he was muttering things. And salivating. It was a disgusting thing to watch.
Even DarIa Strutt seemed to be disgusted by the assistant director. "Give me some space, Don!" she gasped.
Don managed to step back without looking taken aback. "Sure thing, hon."
"Now tell her what you told me," coached DarIa Strutt. She was pointing to Norah Hall.
Don grinned and made a slicing motion across his throat. "We won't be needing your daughter anymore, doll. There's been a script change. Fill in those forms that you were given when you checked in this morning, and make sure Steven gets the white copy. The kid will get paid for today at least."
Norah's mouth began to open and close like a baby bird begging to be fed, but no sound came out. Mercifully Steven appeared out of nowhere and rather forcibly began to usher the pair outside.
"You'll pay for this!" screamed Norah at Don.
Meanwhile, in a last-ditch effort to be discovered, little Sherri began to wail her tune again. There must have been a universal, if not canine, angst in her voice, because DarIa Strutt's Fifi suddenly joined in. When Susannah's precious Shnookums began adding to the din, I put my hands over my ears to shut out the noise, but I could not shut out the sound of Mama turning over, rhythmically, in her grave.
They shot one brief scene that morning. It took almost an hour to shoot, even though the scene itself was less than a minute long. Susannah and I were not in that scene, and I'm more than grateful for that.
"Go on upstairs and get in the tub," I heard Steven say to Martha Sims. "They're ready for you now.
I scooted over. "What tub? And why?"
"Stay out of this, Miss Yoder," Steven snarled. "This is my inn, and the tubs belong to me. So what's this about Martha getting into one of them?"
Steven swatted Martha on the behind with a sort of ledger he was holding. "Go on, they're waiting for you. This is your big scene."
Martha flung me a proud look and pranced obediently up the impossibly steep stairs for which my inn is so famous.
Steven started to slip away, but I nabbed him in time. "Hold it, Bugsy!"
"Make it snappy, Miss Yoder. Time is money in this game."
"Then I'm a millionaire," I said. "Now, what's this about a bathtub scene?"
Bugsy balked at answering. "Take it up with Art, or Don. I don't write or direct the scenes. My only responsibility is to get the actors to their marks on time."
I glanced around for the Arthur Lapata, but he was nowhere in sight. Not that it would have made any difference - I'm not all that good at interpreting nods. I did, however, see the hirsute Don leaving the downstairs commode just in time for me to intercept him.
"Yes, Miss Yoder? Make it quick, I have to direct this scene."
I stared with fascination at his hairy visage for a second or two. "Mr. Manley, it's about this scene. Bugsy, I mean Steven, said it has something to do with a bathtub. What's with the bathtub?"
Don tried to rest a woolly limb across my shoulders, but I shrugged it off. "Look, darling, it's a real cute scene that's going to play very well. The Amishman Freddy - that's Rip - comes into the bathroom and discovers one of the guests taking a bath."
"Naked?"
"Of course, darling. What else? Anyway, Freddy the Amishman gets all embarrassed at first, but then he plays it cool and takes off his clothes and climbs into the tub with the lady. A lot of big laughs, guaranteed."
My face felt as hot as if I'd been baking bread. Undoubtedly this was just a foretaste of where we'd all end up if I didn't put a stop to the evil scene. "Over my dead body, mister!"
Don laughed and gave me a noogie with his shaggy knuckles. "Naw, the dead body comes later, when Freddy discovers that the lady in the tub won't play."
"It'll be your dead body!" I screamed loud enough for everyone in the inn to hear. Then I stomped off to find Arthur Lapata.
He was in the kitchen, chowing down on Freni's shoofly pie. Freni was hovering over him like a mother bird. I wouldn't have been surprised if she suddenly leaned over and dropped food in his mouth.
"Mr. Lapata! Are you in charge here, or is Don?"
"Calm down, Magdalena," said Freni sharply. "Mr. Lapata is just having a midmorning snack."
"In the meantime, Donald Manley is turning the PennDutch into a den of iniquity."
"Nonsense," scoffed Freni. "Arthur would never permit such a thing. Would you?"
Arthur shook his head. He might have mumbled something too, but his mouth was too full of shoofly pie for any of it to be intelligible.
"He says that Mr. Manley is very good at what he does, and that he's already given him the go-ahead to direct a number of scenes in this movie," said Freni. "Arthur says that Mr. Manley has impeccable instincts. He also says that - "
"Does the man actually speak?" I asked.
"Don't be so rude, Magdalena." Freni cut me a thin sliver of shoofly pie, and then another huge slice, which she put on Arthur's plate.
Foolishly, I decided that the few seconds it would take to consume such a thin slice were not all that important in the grand scheme of things. I sat down and began to eat. As usual, the pie was superb.
-5-
FRENI HOSTETLER'S RECIPE FOR SHOOFLY PIE
Makes 8 servings
1 nine-inch unbaked pie crust
1 " cups flour
" cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
" teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
¬ teaspoon salt
1 stick cold butter (1/2 cup)
_ cup water
_ cup unsulphured molasses
" teaspoon baking soda
Combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Cut the butter into pats and add it to the flour mixture. Using a fork, mash the butter into the flour mixture until you get a texture like coarse crumbs. Combine the water, molasses, and baking soda. Pour into the unbaked pie crust. Then spoon the crumb mixture onto the liquid. Bake at 375 degrees for thirty-five to forty minutes. Best if served at room temperature.
-6-
Freni quit her job twice during lunch. The first time was when DarIa Strutt lit up a cigarette and then put it out in one of Freni's casseroles, claiming to have improved it. The second time was when it was discovered that the blackened Hawaiian mahimahi, which everyone raved about, was really a box of fish sticks that Freni had left in the oven too long. Both times Arthur Lapata came to the rescue, and by nodding, and presumably muttering, managed to smooth Freni's ruffled feathers.
Personally, I enjoyed lunch. Don Manley was not there, and neither was Susannah, nor Martha Sims, for that matter. With the exception of DarIa Strutt, who stayed only long enough to put out her cigarette, the only obnoxious person present was Bugsy Freeman. Of course Rip Oilman was there, but as long as we civilians didn't get in his way, he left us alone.
I was just reaching for a piece of Freni's green-tomato pie when Susannah came bursting into the dining room in an explosion of fabric. "Help! Help! Mr. Manley's been forked," she shouted.
Of course, that didn't make any sense to me. Then again, Susannah seldom makes sense. "Have a seat and dig in," I said, "but don't touch that casserole over there."
Susannah ignored my kindness. "No! He's been forked, I tell you. Forked!"
It was becoming clear that Susannah's histrionics were not staged. She wasn't even glancing over at Arthur Lapata. I swallowed the lump in my throat that is invariably the precursor of doom. "What do you mean by forked?"
Susannah made some stabbing motions with her arms.
"You don't mean knifed, do you?"
"Forked!" screamed Susannah.
"Where?" Susannah patted her stomach gingerly, as if she too had been forked.
"No, where is he?"
"In the barn!"
I was not the youngest person in the room, and I was wearing a dress, so there was already a crowd gathered around Don Manley when I got there. I pushed through just far enough to see what Susannah had been talking about. Sure enough, the man had a pitchfork in his belly.
Unfortunately, I have seen corpses before. But those had been poisoned, although one had the added distinction of having been thrown down the stairs. At any rate, Don Manley, forked, was not a pleasant sight. He was still standing, as a matter of fact, because the tines of the fork were pinning him against an upright beam, like a giant moth on a specimen board. Except that moths have very little blood. This specimen seemed to have had gallons of blood. I was going to have to hire Clyde Maynard from the Meat Locker over in Bedford to help me clean it all up. Of course Runs and Reels Productions would pay for it. I'd see to that.
"Call the police," I said to Steven. "The number is above the phone."
Steven, along with everyone else, simply stood and stared at Don.
I sprinted back to the house myself and dialed the police. In Hernia, that puts you in touch with the paramedics as well, not that Don Manley would need them.
"Hernia police and emergency services," a woman responded.
I recognized the voice as belonging to Zelda Root, Hernia's assistant police chief, and breathed a sigh of relief. Because of its small size, Hernia has only two people on its police force: Zelda and the chief himself, Melvin Stoltzfus.
"Zelda, there's been a murder out at my place," I panted into the phone.
"I know," said Zelda complacently. "And they're filming it now, right?"
"Wrong! You've been working with Melvin too long, Zelda This is a real murder. The assistant director's been forked. Right through the gut."
"Is that movie lingo, Magdalena?"
"It's farm talk, Zelda. Somebody speared him with a pitchfork."
"Is he still alive?"
I hadn't thought of that. I didn't think a person could be alive if he'd been forked to a barn beam, but people have a way of surprising you. Leah Brockmeyer managed to survive for three weeks after she slipped down her cellar stairs and broke both legs, and all she had for sustenance was a bushel of apples and a one-pint bottle of imitation vanilla.
"He might be alive," I conceded, "but I wouldn't bet the farm on it."
"I'll call the Bedford paramedics anyway, and give Melvin a call. It's his day off, but he's probably at home, washing the squad car."
"Give the poor guy a break and let him have his day off," I hastened to say, but I was too late. Zelda had already hung up.
In fact, I hadn't even made it back out the door when the phone rang. "Lou Ann's House of Perms and Magical Makeovers," I said as convincingly as I could. "How may we help you?"
"Yoder, is that you?"
"Guilty, Melvin."