Butter Safe Than Sorry

Read Butter Safe Than Sorry Online

Authors: Tamar Myers

Tags: #Bank Robberies, #Mystery & Detective, #Mennonite, #Hotelkeepers, #Yoder; Magdalena (Fictitious character), #Fiction, #Mennonites, #Religion, #Pennsylvania Dutch Country (Pa.), #General, #Mystery Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Crime, #Christianity

Table of Contents
Praise for Tamar Myers's Pennsylvania Dutch Mysteries
"A pinch of acerbity, a scoop of fun, and a pound of originality . . . a delicious treat."
--Carolyn Hart
"A piquant brew, bubbling over with mystery and mirth. I loved every page of it."
--Dorothy Cannell
"As sweet as a piece of brown-sugar pie."
--
Booklist
"Snappy descriptions . . . humorous shenanigans."
--
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"A hoot. Guaranteed you'll be laughing by the third paragraph."
--
The Charleston Post and Courier
(SC)
"Think
Mayberry R.F.D.
with Mennonites. Think
Murder, She Wrote
with a Pennsylvania Dutch accent. Instead of Jessica Fletch-er, think Magdalena Yoder, a plain-dressing, blunt-speaking middle-aged innkeeper who frequently rescues the incompetent chief of police by solving his cases."
--
The Morning Call
(Allentown, PA)
"With her sassy wit and odd habits . . . Magdalena is a delightful main character."
--
The Champion Newspaper
(Decatur, GA)
"Masterful."
--
Kirkus Reviews
OTHER PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH MYSTERIES
by Tamar Myers
Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Crime
No Use Dying Over Spilled Milk
Just Plain Pickled to Death
Between a Wok and a Hard Place
Eat, Drink, and Be Wary
Play It Again, Spam(r)
The Hand That Rocks the Ladle
The Crepes of Wrath
Gruel and Unusual Punishment
Custard's Last Stand
Thou Shalt Not Grill
Assault and Pepper
Grape Expectations
Hell Hath No Curry
As the World Churns
Batter Off Dead
OBSIDIAN
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, February 2010
Copyright (c) Tamar Myers, 2010 All rights reserved
OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Myers, Tamar.
Butter safe than sorry: a Pennsylvania Dutch mystery with recipes/Tamar Myers.
p. cm.
"An Obsidian mystery."
eISBN : 978-1-101-17164-6
1. Yoder, Magdalena (Fictitious character)--Fiction. 2. Pennsylvania Dutch Country (Pa.)--Fiction.
3. Hotelkeepers--Fiction 4. Mennonites--Fiction 5. Bank robberies--Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.Y475B87 2010
813'.54--dc22 2009033379
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author 's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third- party Web sites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

http://us.penguingroup.com

This book is dedicated to my dear friend Kay Chalk.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A special thanks to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, who graciously consented to the use of the recipes in this book. For lots of other delicious (and free) recipes with butter, consult their Web site at
www.eatwisconsincheese.com
.
1
Finally, after almost two hundred years, my hometown had its first bona fide hooker. Of course I don't approve of a woman selling her body for sex--or even for a great deal of money--but I must confess that I found this particular situation rather titillating. After all, Dorothy Yoder was the wife of Hernia's most notorious lecher. But apparently Sam wasn't enough for her, so she tried selling herself to a handsome young tourist and got herself arrested. I mean, really, it had all the ingredients of a poorly written novel, a medium with which I am well acquainted.
To be painfully honest, when I first heard this news, my feet began a happy dance of their own accord. Since dancing is a sin, and I could not stop my tootsies from moving, I had no choice but to hop on my husband's bicycle and take a couple of spins around the farmyard. For once, hallelujah, Hernia's confirmed floozy wasn't my sister, Susannah.
No siree, Bob. This time Hernia's strumpet without a trumpet, her trollop who packed a wallop, was none other than
the
Dorothy Yoder, my cousin-in-law, a woman who had never been nice to me! Oh how the mighty had fallen--both literally and figuratively. The day after her fiftieth birthday, Dorothy--who'd managed to consume four entire sheet cakes and three half gallon cartons of Breyer 's Butter Pecan Ice Cream--was being transferred to a new, and larger, bed, when the main cable broke. Dorothy was not severely injured, but apparently jolted enough to consider a very dangerous surgical option over dieting.
Two years, and many cosmetic surgeries later, seven-hundred-pound Dorothy was a svelte size sixteen and looked twenty years younger than her husband. As our town's only grocer, married to the daughter of a wealthy man, Sam had long perched on our highest social rung. But when Dorothy got her looks back--her words, not mine--she started wearing clothes that revealed her decolletage and emphasized her still-impressive derriere. Not only that, but she got her flaming red hair cut and styled, and started applying more makeup than even a fallen Methodist has a right to. Trust me, I am not exaggerating--not this time. For her maiden outing as the painted Whore of Babylon, Dorothy had a professional apply the goop and glop, and when she returned home, her three daughters didn't recognize her and tried to have her arrested as an intruder.
Schadenfreude
, that peculiarly German, but oh so useful, word described my feelings perfectly when I heard this. The reason that Dorothy has never been nice to me is because her husband, Sam, carries a torch for Yours Truly. Sam's torch is like one of those trick birthday candles that can't be blown out--no matter what. Sam delivered my son on the floor of his so-called grocery store (Yoder's Corner Market), but even seeing my "business" at its worst, so to speak, was not enough to dampen his ardor.
I should hasten to clarify that I have absolutely no interest in Sam and have never encouraged him. We are, in fact, first cousins on my mother's side of the family, and whilst I am not biologically related to the woman who raised me, that doesn't matter: Sam was, is, and will always be, an annoying cousin who must be endured--somewhat like toenail fungus when prescription ointments won't work.
Thus it was a bittersweet thing to find Dorothy hanging about the store when I popped in that Friday afternoon with my son, Little Jacob, in tow. The woman was wearing a moleskin leopard-print dress and six- inch spike heels. Her eyeliner was so heavy, it looked like she'd glued slivers of charcoal to her eyelids. As for her eye
shadow
, I guessed the metallic silver was supposed to match her lipstick, shoes, and shoulder- length bangle earrings, but frankly, it gave her an eerily reptilian look.
"Is that a real woman, Mama?" Little Jacob asked the second his eyes adjusted to the dim light.
" 'Out of the mouths of babes,' " I said, quoting Psalms 8:2.

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