“Clear the room, folks. It’s my turn to talk to her!”
We hadn’t heard Jenx coming. The compactly built Magnet Springs police chief leaned against the door frame. Although she wore her blue uniform, she’d removed her service revolver, presumably out of courtesy for our hosts.
“This is a first,” she said. “A visiting Realtor gets shot down in Amish Country. Can’t wait to hear your side.”
She shooed MacArthur and Chester from the room and closed the solid oak door. I resumed sobbing.
“You puke and you faint, but you never cry,” Jenx said.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I bawled into Chester’s borrowed handkerchief. “I just feel so sad!”
Jenx said. “Good thing Jeb’s not here to see you like this.”
That activated a new chain of sobs.
“What’s going on with you two, anyhow?” the chief said.
Jenx had drawn up the wooden chair Mrs. Yoder used and was now leaning back in it, arms crossed, head cocked.
“Why don’t you ask Jeb?” I said. “He was supposed to help me find Abra, but he took off with Susan Davies. I think they’re having an affair! She does that, you know, with lots of people!”
“Jeb’s just being Jeb,” Jenx said calmly. “And you’re just being you.”
“Being a volunteer deputy for you!”
“That’s not a license to get stupid,” she said.
“Can I help it if my dog’s gone, my boyfriend’s gone, and I got shot?”
“Your dog runs away every chance she gets. And your luck sucks, especially with men. Face it, Whiskey, you attract trouble like Odette attracts clients.”
“You should investigate that bitch Susan,” I told the chief. “I’ll bet she killed Mitchell and Matt!”
“You think Susan shot at Ramona, her co-breeder, twice?” Jenx asked. “And then shot at you, just for fun?”
“She hates me,” I said.
“Well, sure, but I don’t see Susan driving that pickup. And she couldn’t have shot at her own car when she was in it.”
“She hired somebody! You don’t know Susan. She has a way of getting people to do her bidding. I came to the damn dog show, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but you did that for mercenary reasons.”
Jenx removed a notebook from her pocket and flipped through it.
“Here’s what we got so far, based on MacArthur’s info and my background checks.”
The chief recapped events in order, starting with Susan’s report that she and Ramona were fired at as they drove to Vestige on Thursday night. Then someone shot at either Ramona, who was outside with Jeb, or at Susan’s car, which was parked in my driveway. When Officer Brady Swancott asked Susan to produce a list of enemies, Ramona brought up a certain breeder.
“Susan didn’t want to talk about Slater,” I recalled. “According to Ramona, his dog had a stroke while having sex with Susan’s dog, so Susan never got her stud fee refunded, and Slater never forgave her for killing his dog. But that’s not right.
Jenx checked her notes. “How so?”
“Perry said that Susan was the only woman who ever dumped Mitchell. And Susan did get her stud fee back, FYI-plus a puppy: Silverado. She also got Mitchell’s hottie son, Matt.”
Jenx raised a finger to stop me.
“You’re saying Susan used Mitchell to get the stud fee, the stud dog, and the human stud? Then why would she kill him?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “But since Mitchell’s dead, is there any reason Peg can’t keep Yoda?”
“Perry says Mitchell wanted him to take care of Yoda,” Jenx said. “So Perry is being responsible. He’s paying Peg a thousand bucks. You know she needs the cash.”
“She needs Yoda, too! He was all the family she had.”
“Not anymore. Deely and Dr. David got a lead on another gray cat looking for a good home. Fleggers like Peg. They think she’s enlightened. Brady can alter her tattoo.”
Referring to her notebook, Jenx ticked through a long list of observations, most of them relayed by either me or MacArthur. They included the power outage at the exhibit hall, Matt’s death and Silverado’s disappearance, the cat fight between Brenda Spenser and Sandy Slater, and Kori’s sudden absence. I told her my theory that Kori had used the distraction of the first helicopter’s departure to cover her exit in the pickup. Or the Lincoln. Jenx didn’t seem impressed.
“I ran the plates on the silver pickup,” the chief said. “It’s not registered to Kori or her uncle. It’s not even registered in Illinois.”
After a long silence, I realized that Jenx was staring at me.
“What?” I said.
“What the hell kind of volunteer deputy are you? Don’t you want to know who the silver pickup belongs to?”
I propped myself up as best I could. “Sure. Is it somebody I’ve heard of?”
“It’s somebody in Magnet Springs,” Jenx said.
Chapter Forty-One
Immediately I thought of every Magnet Springer I knew who owned a truck. Most were fellow Main Street merchants. None seemed potentially violent or even conniving. Sure, we were all hard pressed to make a living these days, but nobody struck me as desperate enough to kill. Or crazy enough to kidnap an Afghan hound. Especially not if my dog was along for the ride.
At my bedside, Jenx produced a folded sling. Then she carefully removed Mrs. Yoder’s poultices and slipped my right arm into its new cradle.
“You always carry medical supplies in your hip pocket?” I asked.
“Only when I come to rescue you.”
As she eased me out of bed, I remarked that I’d never seen this nurturing side of her.
“And if you tell anybody,” she said. “I’ll kill you. I know how to do it and leave no trace.”
Moving through the Yoder’s home, I suddenly found myself thinking like a Realtor for the first time in days. Based on its interior details, the farmhouse appeared to have been built in the nineteen-teens. I admired the four- inch oak molding, the brass door hardware, the old plank floors, and the high ceilings.
MacArthur and Chester were waiting for us in the kitchen. Chester had dressed again in his school blazer and chinos, but his hair was still flat from its time under a straw hat. Jacob and Rachel were there, too; the little girl clung to Mrs. Yoder’s skirt, apparently for protection. Next to the freestanding kitchen sink, which was powered, I noticed, by an old fashioned hand pump, stood a severe-looking bearded man I took to be Mr. Yoder.
“Your home is beautiful,” I said, beaming at him and his wife. They did not beam back. In fact, they averted their eyes. “Of course, I haven’t seen the outside because I was unconscious, but the inside is very well maintained.”
Nobody replied. That was my cue to do what I always do when I get nervous: I babbled.
“Even though I’m not licensed to sell real estate in Indiana, I would venture to say that, should you decide to put your farm on the market, you could probably get close to your asking price from the right buyer, even in this economy. That’s often the case with unique properties. I don’t know how many acres or out-buildings you have here, but let’s focus on the house itself. Assuming you’re not in a floodplain, your foundation is solid, your roof is recent, and your chimney flues can be brought up to code with heat-resistant tiles, you’ve got yourselves a winner! Sure, these old farmhouses typically lack closet space and have small rooms by today’s standards, but your kitchen is plenty large. In fact, it feels downright spacious.”
Suddenly I understood why. There were no major appliances taking up space. But did that stop me from
