“I most certainly do. I mean, there is a chance.”
“Some chance! Mags, you really should watch more TV. They have to prove negligence in a suit. It can’t just be because the stairs are steep.”
“And there is the banister,” I reminded her.
“Exactly. So you see, you don’t have a thing to worry about, do you?”
“I sure hope you’re right. But I still don’t think shopping is such a good idea right now.”
“Maybe not for you,” said Susannah wickedly. “The inn is in your name, not mine. Remember?”
“Thanks a lot!” But she had a point. I was the responsible adult. Call me an enabler, but Susannah, despite her burgeoning years, is not capable, much less culpable, which is precisely why Mama and Papa left the inn to me.
“Come on, Mags, let me have the car,” Susannah begged, “and I promise to tell you that juicy bit of information that is guaranteed to knock your socks off.”
“Okay,” I said at last. The gas tank was almost empty, and Hernia didn’t have a full-service station. Since Susannah would rather go to church than pump her own gas, it was a safe bet that she wasn’t going to get very far.
“Goody!” cried Susannah. She rubbed her hands gleefully together and then cupped them to her mouth like a little girl about to gossip to her best friend. “Not only is that awful Jeanette Linda’s mother,” she whispered, “but Congressman Ream is her father.”
“Come on!” I’m almost positive I felt at least a tug on my hose.
“I kid you not. And not only that, but I think Jeanette’s been blackmailing the Congressman. I think she’s been putting the screws on him for years. Her showing up yesterday was no coincidence. And you know what else? I think the Congressman’s wife has known about this all along, but for some stupid reason she won’t or can’t divorce him. That’s what I think.”
“You think? You think? Susannah, blackmail is a serious crime. You can’t be making allegations like that based on things you heard through the ceiling. I can’t believe Lydia Ream would put up with such a sordid situation.”
“I have news for you, Sis. Lydia Ream is not the saint you make her out to be. I heard her telling her husband that it was his turn to start paying, remember? And she didn’t sound like a choir member when she said it either. In fact, she used words that you have probably never even heard of. It’s obvious that she’s mad as hell about the blackmail and isn’t going to take it anymore.”
“I think they call that circumstantial evidence.”
“You are such a skeptic, Mags. You don’t believe anything unless you have pages of documentation.”
“I still don’t believe Shnookums is a dog. Circumstantial evidence leads me to believe that he is a species of hairy rat.”
“That does it!” Susannah stood up in a billowy huff and stormed from the table. At the doorway she stopped. “And one more thing, Miss Yoder, Billy Dee Grizzle already has a girlfriend, and Delbert James just happens to be gay!”
“And so is Shnookums!” I screamed at her back. Any animal psychiatrist would have a field day with a canine that was perpetually carried around in a purse or a half-empty bra.
To my disappointment, Susannah didn’t respond to my last remark. Shnookums, however, did. I didn’t get a chance to see the puddle the nervous little pooch produced, but Susannah bolted for the bathroom, and later on I found that pile of polyester swirls she’d been wearing crammed into my hamper.
Chapter 12
The second my car, with Susannah at the wheel, disappeared from sight, I bolted up the steep stairs of my gloriously empty inn and headed straight for the sealed-off room. It was a little tricky getting the orange tape off the doorjamb in such a way that I could replace it without anyone’s being the wiser. Only a sharp-eyed detective would notice my tampering when I was through, and even Chief Myers, God bless him, wasn’t that perceptive. If he was, he would undoubtedly have noticed that his wife, Tammy, had knock-knees, a mouth like a mule, and brayed when she laughed. He should have bought her a saddle instead of that engagement ring, back when we were in high school.
I don’t know what I expected to find in Miss Brown’s room. I simply started looking through her things, which, with the exception of a pair of rinsed-out hose hanging on the towel rack, a pair of brown house slippers with gray piping, and the shoes and dress she’d worn the day before, were all still in her suitcase. Her purse had apparently been taken by the Chief.
That her suitcase was locked didn’t slow me down a bit. Every Mennonite girl worth her bonnet knows how to wield a hairpin with the skill of a surgeon. I had that drab little valise open in less time than it takes Freni to smile, not that it did me any good. Two beige bras, two mostly white pairs of panties, a gray sweater, a pair of brown slacks, an oatmeal-colored blouse, and a toothbrush didn’t tell me a whole lot more than I already knew—except that she wore a size ten panty, which meant that her dress had done a fine job of disguising her big caboose.