Batter Off Dead (2 page)

Dr. Gabriel Rosen and I were experiencing a very troubled spot in our marriage when the improbable news of my conception was delivered by the impossibly beautiful Dr. Rashid. That was nearly eight months ago. The very troubled spot remains in our marriage, but fortunately she now lives across Hertzler Road and up a very long lane. I like to think that I’ve managed to sever at least one of the apron strings that tied her to my beloved husband, her son, but if that’s so, then said strings have the ability to grow back—somewhat like lizard tails.

My people were originally Amish, and most of them arrived in this country in 1738 aboard the
Charming Nancy
(
The Descendants of Jacob Hochstetler
erroneously sets the date at 1736). From that time until now, my direct forebears filtered up (or down, depending on your point of view) through the ranks of leniency, so that by the time I came along, my family was no longer Amish, but Old Order Mennonite.

Since the 1830s we have lived in Hernia, Pennsylvania, which, by the way, is located
nowhere near Lancaster
. We are located in the south-central part of the state, just about a horseshoe toss north of wild and woolly Maryland. There are only four businesses in this town of less than 2,500 souls: Miller ’s Feed Store, the blacksmith shop (run by One-Eyed John), Sam Yoder ’s Corner Market (where the words
fresh produce
are an oxymoron), and last, but far from least, the PennDutch Inn.

The inn has been very successful, thanks to an early-on review from
Condor Nest Travel
magazine. Throw in a handful of murders, some torrid Hollywood romances, some embarrassing Washington disclosures, and a quick mention of a Japanese tourist who may have been stuck in the teensy-weensy elevator for some months after her last desperate cries were heard (it really was not my fault, and I do plan to get her out someday), and it couldn’t help but be a moneymaker. In fact, so much moola did the PennDutch pull in, that she is now temporarily closed while I count it all and attend to the growing of my male child. In the meantime, the staff—Freni Hostetler—remains on duty to see that I, as well as my husband and our fourteen-year-old pseudo-stepdaughter, eat well.

“Magdalena!”

I started into reality. “Uh—what?”

Amygdaline Schrock is Hernia’s second busiest body, after my best friend, Agnes Mishler. She had a firm grip on my dress sleeve, which meant I wasn’t going to enjoy any pancakes until I heard her out.

“I thought you might be interested in knowing that a certain so-and-so is exchanging saliva with a certain who-does-she-think-she-is behind the church.”

“Please, dear, I
do
plan to eat.”

“Well, she’s your friend; I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Still—You don’t mean Agnes, do you?”

“Well, I don’t mean Santa Claus.”

“But she’s engaged to Harmon, and he lives in one of the square states and isn’t due to visit for another three months, when he comes down for their wedding. Are you absolutely sure?”

“I saw it myself, Magdalena, and this wasn’t any outsider named Harmon: this was our very own Kenneth Kuhnberger.”

“Get out of town!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s just an expression my sister, Susannah, uses. It’s not to be taken literally—although I do know of a real estate agent who lives in Sarasota. She specializes in selling homes down there to Mennonite retirees.”

“And what makes you think I’m old enough to retire?”

“The fact that you used to babysit for me when I was a little girl, and you were already a senior in high school by then. On the other hand, it’s possible that you were held back six or seven grades.”

“Tell me, Magdalena, is it my name you don’t like?”

Actually, Eh-
mig
-dah-lin is a nice strong name, reminiscent of my own. The fact that it refers to a cyanogenetic substance found in the seeds of apricots and bitter almonds only adds to its charm. What the woman doesn’t seem to get is that she has the personality of a wolverine.

“No,
you
tell
me
something,” I said. “Why do you think I would want to hear bad news about a dear friend?”

“Uh—so that you could do something about it?”

“Like what? I’m not her mother, for goodness’ sake.”

“Well”—she snorted—“you can’t blame a gal for trying.” With that, her talons released my sleeve and she stomped off to find another victim to demoralize.

“Save me a stack,” I called pleasantly to my crew. “And I want six pieces of bacon—remember, I’m eating for two. I’ll be right back.”

And indeed I was, for the breakfast was being held in our fellowship hall, which is in the basement of the church, and it took me only two minutes to cut through the kitchen and up the back cement steps. As it was a cold and windy March day, no one in their right mind was up there kissing, and neither were Agnes and Kenneth Kuhnberger. But even though I’d been gone such a short time, a lot seemed to have happened during my absence.

None of the servers were at their stations. In fact, just about everybody in Hernia seemed to be crowded
behind
the serving tables—which, by the way, is an absolute no-no.

“What the ding, dang, dong is going on?” I hollered. “Sorry,” I mumbled to the little one on board. “I’ll try to clean up the language.”

Amygdaline Schrock broke loose from the jumble of folks and took up her post at my elbow again. When she tried to grab my sleeve, I brushed her hand away in a firm but gentle manner.

“You got your wish, Magdalena: Minerva J. Jay is dead.”

“The second you left, she sank to the floor like an imploding building.”

“Has anyone called 911?”

“Elmer Troyer did. He called both the dispatch center in Bedford, plus our very own chief of police.”

I craned my neck for a better look but could see only a sea of backs.
Wide
backs.

“What makes you think she’s dead? Does anyone here know CPR?”

“Karen Imhoff is a trauma nurse at Bedford County Memorial. She can’t find a pulse.”

“But I was gone only a minute,” I wailed.

Amygdaline consulted an enormous watch that somehow managed to look both officious and cheap at the same time. “You were gone six minutes and nineteen seconds.”

“I
was
? Oops, I forgot about detouring for a potty break on the way back, and wouldn’t you know there was a line, and of course I just had to get behind Thelma Neubrander, who went on, and on, and on, and—”

“Just like you?”

I sighed. “If the shoe fits, but it better be a size eleven, and with my feet as swollen as they are—”

“Magdalena, quit stalling.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re blathering like on a drunken writer, whereas the Magdalena I thought I knew would take charge.”

“She would?”

“You bet your bottom dollar, and from what I understand, that’s rather a huge fortune.”

“Forsooth, although it still wouldn’t be enough to win if the Donald played trump.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

“Nothing; it was just some card-playing humor—which I don’t do, mind you, except for rook and old maid, on account of real cards can lead to sin—”

“You’re stalling again,” she hissed. This time specks of her spittle peppered my face. They may have been minuscule, but I could feel them long after they’d landed.

Clearly, I had been goaded beyond human endurance. Perhaps, then, I can be forgiven for grabbing the lids of two empty metal serving trays and clanging them together like a pair of giant cymbals.
That
got everyone’s attention, including the man-child’s. The little fella kicked me so hard that I grunted in pain.

As a matter of fact, he kicked me twice. It was like he was using my abdominal wall as a place to push off from, so he could swim away to somewhere quiet and sane.

“Hey, take it easy,” I whispered. “I would never kick you. And just in case you’re looking for a way out, the portal’s not due to open for another two weeks. So as they say in New Joisey, fuggedaboutit.”

The murmuring of the crowd informed me that I was already losing their attention. I had to act fast.

“Stand back,” I roared. “That means everybody except for Karen Imhoff and the victim—uh, I mean Minerva J. Jay.”

My words were like a magic wand. Or perhaps it was the genuine faux-pewter trays; maybe they thought I’d box their ears with them. At any rate, the throng shrank back, forming a circle, into which yours truly stepped.

I knelt beside Karen, who was holding Minerva’s head in her lap. “Is she really dead?” I whispered.

The throng leaned in, as if bowing their heads for prayer. “Let’s just say that if I was at the hospital right now, I’d look for a doctor to call it.”

“In that case, since everyone’s already assumed a pious pose, let’s really pray. Who’d like to go first?” My words had the same apparent effect on them as spraying Raid does on a pile of roaches; they fanned out in all directions, although to be perfectly honest, very few flipped on their backs and kicked their legs in the air.

I could hear Karen sigh loudly. It sounded like relief.

“What’s that all about, dear?”

“I know this is going to sound awful, Miss Yoder, but I hate public, extemporaneous prayer: it’s the stilted prayer language that really sets my teeth on edge.”

“You mean like when folks use words like
thee
and
thine
?”

“Exactly. That’s King James English, not biblical English. There was no such language as English when the Bible was first written. But you know, what really sets my teeth on edge is
just
.”

“The word
just
? What’s wrong with that?”

“For some reason it gets inserted into every unscripted prayer. Listen for it, Miss Yoder; you won’t be able to miss it. Someone will get started praying, and the next thing you know, they’ll say something like ‘Lord, we
just
ask that you heal our sister Debra,’ or ‘Lord, we
just
ask that you give us the necessary wisdom to deal with this problem.’ What does that mean? And if you ask them why they’ve inserted the word
just
into their prayers, they’ll look at you like you’re crazy. I guess they just don’t hear
just
anymore.”

“Well, I for one don’t do it!”

“Ah, but you do: I’ve heard you. Virtually every born-again Christian does it.”

“But not me,” I wailed. “You’re putting a word into my mouth that doesn’t belong there.”

“Excuse me, Miss Yoder, the crowd is edging closer again, so are we going to pray or not?”

With considerable effort, I managed to get to my feet. “I’m still looking for a volunteer to pray,” I said. “And you can’t use the word
just
. Anyone who does use it gets to make a one-hundred-dollar donation to the new roof fund. So think of it as a chance to give, folks.”

The crowd murmured loudly as they scattered to the far corners of the fellowship hall—well, except for the blessed Karen Imhoff and the stubborn Amygdaline Schrock. At any rate, that left only the four of us, and since I was the wealthiest and, some say, the orneriest, I decided to give my own challenge a try. Alas, whether by intention or not, I failed miserably; all that matters is that the brotherhood had a thousand more clams in their coffers when I was through addressing the Almighty to mark the occasion of Minerva J. Jay’s passing.

 

 

Hernia’s only law enforcement officer arrived just seconds after my resounding
amen
, and I immediately filled him in. Police Chief Chris Ackerman is only in his midtwenties and so good-looking that women have been known to commit minor crimes just so they could have the pleasure of being thrown into his jail overnight. Jaywalking, loitering, even solicitation citations initially went through the roof. Gradually, however, as the people of Hernia learned that the Good Lord, in His wisdom, had chosen Chris to bat for the other team, this much-needed source of income dried up.

Once, believe it or not, in more prosperous times, we had a two-person police department, and on occasion even that was not enough. At first glance Hernia may not seem like a den of iniquity, but the Devil is just as hard at work here as he is anywhere else. Thank heaven, then, that murder follows me around like odor follows a troop of prepubescent boys, because over the years it has allowed me to become well steeped in the workings of the criminal mind. I say this without hubris. Indeed, I get very little credit—certainly no monetary reward—for solving the brutal deaths of others, and I am often subjected to great danger.

Why, then, one might legitimately ask, do I involve myself in such a dangerous pastime? Do I experience the same satisfaction one might feel if they’ve taken on the task of solving a particularly complicated puzzle? Absolutely not; the solutions to some murders are absurdly simple. Do I feel especially brave when I’m confronting a killer who has a gun digging into my well-formed ribs? Frankly, with my shapely knees knocking so hard, it’s difficult to tell. Once I even soiled—uh, well, never you mind. But I will confess that another time I foiled a madman by jumping down into the pit of our six-seater outhouse.

“Miss Yoder!” Young Chris shook me with a good deal of force. “Miss Yoder, you’re not going to faint again, are you?”

When you wake up and smell the coffee, you can only hope it’s something better than what we serve at Beechy Grove Mennonite Church. “I’m as fine as frog hair, dear. I was lost in thought; it’s still pretty much virgin territory.”

“I was saying that we should go back to my office and talk.”

“Talk? About what? I told you everything.”

“Yes, but that was off the record, and in the presence of Miss Schrock.”

“Why, I never!” Amygdaline was panting with rage. “Listen here, young man, I pay your salary, just as much as Magdalena does, so I have the same right to be privy to this conversation as does she.”