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he really was Satan. And no, I am absolutely not making light of what was a serious situation. Consider this: the Devil – with a capital D – can assume many guises other than serpents. Take, for instance, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe. Since the Bible states unequivocally that God is a He, I say thank heavens that Satan is a He as well. Otherwise, we women would be blamed for even more than we already have been, thanks to Eve and her desire to eat healthy. At any rate, it is the Devil’s male gender that accounts for the fact that one doesn’t find any women on my list of the Devil’s most notorious aliases. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, until proven wrong, I was quite willing to believe that Toy from Charlotte was the Great Tempter.
    On the other hand, it was possible that he was merely an unusually canny young male, entirely human in nature, having an invisible bag of tricks up his short white polyester sleeves. Whatever his shtick (a lovely Yiddish word, thanks to my dear Jewish husband), it behoved me to play along with Hernia’s Chief of Police upon whose chest hung the shiny silver badge of officialdom. Either way, Devil or man-child, he had come to me seeking my help, and offering me an enticing bribe. Believe me, gift horses with perfect teeth don’t come trotting into my stable just any old day.
    Last, but not least, was the fact that two of Chief Toy’s suspects, Agnes and Doc, were innocent. I would have been willing to bet the farm on that – literally – except that we Mennonites don’t bet as a matter of religious conviction. As it just so happened, those two innocent people were my very best friends. Perhaps I could clear their names on my own, thus saving them the humiliating journey through Hernia’s gossip mill. Although the truth was on my side, in this country we believe that justice is blind which, of course, makes as much sense as having a guide dog that is blind. Therefore it was I, Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen, riding to the rescue – in a police cruiser, red lights swirling and sirens wailing.
    â€˜Flattery will get you everywhere,’ I practically yelled. ‘I accept your offer.’
    From the corner of my right eye I saw Granny Yoder shake a bony finger at me, and then in another flurry of dust motes she vanished from my stuffy parlour.

THREE
    â€˜W hat was that all about?’ my Dearly Beloved inquired delicately. To his credit, he’d been waiting patiently in the kitchen, along with our one-year-old son, Little Jacob, and Freni, my beloved kinswoman, who also happened to be our cook. I gave Gabriel points for patience, because I knew that he would have liked nothing better than to have stormed the parlour and thrown the ‘little whippersnapper Toy’ out on his ear.
    â€˜It was about the English woman, ya?’ Freni said, hazarding a guess. To the Amish, anyone from the outside world is ‘English.’ The reason for this is because the Amish immigrated to America from Switzerland as a group in the early 1700s when England ruled the land. The Amish were an insular faith, keeping to themselves as much as they could. To them the outside world was English, and it remained so, even after the United States declared its independence in 1776. Hence, Hispanic Americans are considered English by the Amish, because they are not Amish, whereas an Englishwoman from England, who adopted the Amish faith, would no longer be English. Go figure. Thus the word English is used as a religious classification rather than a national one. To a woman like Freni, the expression ‘English English’ might well refer to a Roman Catholic from London.
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. ‘He needs my help in catching that horrible woman’s killer.’
    â€˜Now, darling,’ said the Babester (as I am wont to call my husband in the privacy of my mind), ‘it isn’t nice to speak ill of the dead. Or is that