I had addressed the question to Melvin Stoltzfus, but Jeanette Parker answered. “By all means, do. Nobody asked you to come in here to begin with.”
“I do own this place,” I reminded her.
“But not for long, I promise you that. I plan to sue you for everything you’ve got, Ms. Yoder. You can expect to hear from my lawyers as soon as I get home.”
“Ha! Not if someone else beats you to it,” I said. “You can’t squeeze blood from a stone.” I’d rather have the mousy Miss Brown’s estate wring me dry than that loud-mouth Jeanette.
“The inn is entirely in my sister’s name,” Susannah piped up.
“The rats are jumping ship now, are they?” I asked her.
“Leave Shnookums out of this!”
I glared at everyone in the room, including Billy Dee, who hadn’t offered anything like the support I had hoped for, and left the parlor. I grabbed my coat from the front closet by the desk and went out the front door and around the house to feed the chickens and gather eggs.
That Mose had already attended to them was irrelevant. I have always found surrounding myself with chickens to be therapeutic. There is something about their squawking and squabbling that empowers me, especially if it is I who have generated the hee-cack. Chickens have many human characteristics, if you stop to think about it. They can be “mad as a wet hen,” “gabby old hens,” “cocky,” have “something to crow about,” and, of course, just plain old “chicken.” I suppose your average therapist would have a field day with this, but I enjoy being a Brobdingnagian in their Lilliputian world. Chickens fear and respect me, which is more than I can say for anything else in this world.
As usual, the chickens were flapping and squawking out of my way as I reached into their nest boxes to get out the eggs. In most instances hens will stay put and sometimes even peck the hand that tries to pluck their eggs, but not my darlings. Even the dumbest of them learned early in the game that I will goose any hen who doesn’t vacate her box immediately.
I had just managed to intimidate Pertelote, the boldest of my hens, into leaving her nest, when I heard the most awful disturbance behind me. Foxes might be historically infamous for raiding henhouses, but in Hernia it’s coons, nine times out of ten. And lately, raccoons have gotten bolder and bolder and are as likely to make a foray into fowldom in broad daylight as they are at night. If I wasn’t a pacifist by heritage, I would buy a gun and blow those masked bandits to kingdom come.
I whirled around, half-expecting to see a raccoon. “Lydia!”
“Hello, Magdalena.”
“What on earth are you doing here?” Even in her hunting clothes Lydia Ream looked far too elegant to grace the inside of a henhouse.
“Magdalena, I need to talk to you.” Lydia advanced a few tentative steps.
“Don’t worry, those hens are just as afraid of you as you are of them.”
Lydia pointed down at her shoes. “It’s not them I’m afraid of.”
“Right. Why don’t we step outside into my office?”
She continued to weave her way across the floor to me. “No, I’d rather talk in here.”
“Suit yourself then.” After all, if a Senator’s daughter and Congressman’s wife, not to mention a potential First Lady, wanted to chat with me in a chicken coop, who was I to object?
“We just got in,” said Lydia. “No sooner had we walked through the front door than this monstrous little man pounced on us and said Linda was dead. Said she was poisoned. He also said everyone here at the Inn is a suspect, at least until they get back the coroner’s report. Is that true?”
“That monstrous little man is Melvin Stoltzfus. And, yes, Linda is dead. Susannah found her in bed late this morning. As for all of us being suspects, some of us are less so than others.”
Lydia shook her head. “What a tragedy. Linda was so young. Who could have done such a terrible thing? And that man—that Mellwood somebody—doesn’t seem to possess an ounce of sensitivity. Garrett and Delbert are in there talking to him right now, but I had to find you right away.”
“Praying mantises eat their mates,” I said simply.
“What?”
“Never mind. How did you know where to find me?”
“Your sister told me. She said you find chickens comforting.” Lydia smiled as if she approved. “Magdalena, the reason I need to talk to you is because you are such a sensible woman. Why, just look, even your shoes are sensible.”
Lydia paused while I glanced down at my feet. When Susannah says that I wear sensible shoes, she means it as an insult.