“I heard she was Amish,” Vance said.

“She’s not Amish,” Theo said.

“I didn’t say she was Amish, I just said I heard that. I figured she wasn’t Amish when I saw the blender in the kitchen. Amish don’t believe in blenders, do they?”

“Mennonite,” Mike said with as much authority as his junior status would afford.

“What’s a Mennonite?” Vance asked.

“Amish with blenders.”

“She wasn’t Amish,” Theo said.

“She looks Amish,” Vance said.

“Well, her husband’s not Amish,” Mike said.

“How can you tell?” Vance said. “He has a beard.”

“Zipper on his jacket,” Mike said. “Amish don’t have zippers.”

Vance shook his head. “Mixed marriages. They never work.”

“She wasn’t Amish!” Theo shouted.

“Think what you want, Theo, there’s a butter churn in the living room. I think that says it all.”

Mike rubbed at a mark on the wall beneath Bess’s feet where her black buckled shoes had scraped as she convulsed.

“Don’t touch anything,” Theo said.

“Why? She can’t yell at us, she’s dead. We wiped our feet on the way in,” Vance said.

Mike stepped away from the wall. “Maybe she couldn’t stand anything touching her floors. Hanging was the only way.”

Not to be outdone by the detective work of his protégé, Vance said, “You know, the sphincters usually open up on a hanging victim—leave an awful mess. I’m wondering if she actually hanged herself.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Mike said.

“I am the police,” Theo said. He was Pine Cove’s only constable, duly elected eight years ago and reelected every other year thereafter.

“No, I mean the real police,” Mike said.

“I’ll radio the sheriff,” Theo said. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do here, guys. Would you mind calling Pastor Williams from the Presby-terian church to come over? I need to talk to Joseph and I need someone to stay with the girls.”