Free Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Crime by Tamar Myers Page B

lot of reasons out there why people kill, and you need to come up with the most likely one in this case."
     
     
"How about the mob, Doc? A reporter told me Don Manley owed a lot to the mob."
     
     
"Maybe," said Doc, but he didn't sound interested in that theory. "If I were you, I'd look closer to home. Find someone this Manley guy stepped on in an unforgivable sort of way. That type of thing. It's just a thought, Magdalena, but that's what I'd look for."
     
     
"Thanks, Doc."
     
     
"Say, you still planning to meet that chicken fryer from Baltimore on Saturday?"
     
     
"Jim? Yeah, Doc. We're going to have dinner at Ed's Steak House. What of it?"
     
     
Doc looked away, but not before I caught the look in his eyes. "Just you be careful, Magdalena. Those Maryland folks are a tough lot, and the ones from Baltimore in particular. You want me to go along? Just in case, I mean."
     
     
I patted old Doc's hand. I was genuinely warmed inside by his consideration. Or was it his jealousy? It didn't matter. As long as it didn't get out of hand, whatever Doc was feeling flattered me. "That's okay, Doc, I'm sure I can handle Jim just fine." At least I was looking forward to trying.
     
     
That night I dreamed about my upcoming date with Jim. In my dream, Jim was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his mid-forties. I suppose he had a handsome face, but all I remember were his cold blue eyes.
     
     
"Hi, I'm Magdalena," I said in my dream.
     
     
"My name is Parsley," said the man with the cold blue eyes. "Elvis Parsley." He laughed, the kind of laugh that sends shivers down your spine.
     
     
"But I thought you were Jim," I said. We had been standing outside Ed's Steak House, but suddenly it had become my henhouse. Neither of us seemed to care about the change of setting.
     
     
"My name was Jim," said the man, "but now it's Parsley. Can't you ever get anything right, Magdalena?"
     
     
"Yes, of course," I started to protest. Then the man with the cold blue eyes, who I had thought was Jim, turned into my mother. Mercifully I woke up at that point.
     
     
-9-
     
     
About four in the morning, I woke up with a full bladder. Mama used to call that hour of the morning the deathwatch. She claimed that more people died at four in the morning than at any other time. When Grandma Yoder died, it was precisely 4:03. I know, because I was awakened by what I thought was Grandma's voice saying good-bye. I remember glancing at my bedside clock, and telling myself that it was all a dream and I should go back to sleep. But then, before I could as much as close my eyes, I heard Mama crying because, as I learned later, Grandma had just died. Mama had been holding her hand when it happened.
     
     
Anyway, after I used the toilet, I couldn't go back to sleep again. It wasn't that I sensed someone had just died, but because my mind was racing with thoughts about who had killed Don Manley. It might even have been the spirit of Don Manley who was putting those thoughts in my mind, but of course I would never suggest such a thing to anyone. We Amish-Mennonites firmly do not believe in ghosts, even if they stare us sometimes in the face.
     
     
About five o'clock I gave up on going back to sleep and got dressed. In the summertime that's just when the first birds began to twitter, and it's almost impossible to go back to sleep then under the best of circumstances. When I got outside, the sky had lightened enough so that I could see the com tassels in the field behind the six-seater and the chicken coop. Without exactly meaning to, I found myself skirting these two buildings and heading for the barn.
     
     
Just before the main entrance to the barn is the Dutch door that leads to the cowshed. The top half was open and I poked my head in. Matilda, ever the shy one, mooed softly in the comer, but Bessie ambled over to me and snuffled my hair. "Be good girls and give Mose a lot of milk this morning," I urged them.
     
     
I walked over to the main door.