Just Plain Pickled to Death (19 page)

She laughed, suddenly not caring if the others heard or not. “Someone once said there is a sucker born every minute. You, honey, are the biggest lollipop I know.”

I stormed out of there without paying my twenty bucks.

Chapter Twenty

Magdalena Yoder’s Wedding Feast, from Soup to Nuts

Auntie Magdalena’s Potato Dumplings

3 cups mashed potatoes (cooled)

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon onion powder

2 quarts chicken or vegetable broth (water may be used in place of part or all). If only water is used, compensate by adding a teaspoon of salt, melted butter

Thoroughly mix eggs, flour, salt, and onion powder into cool mashed potatoes. Let mixture sit for a few minutes while liquid is brought to a rolling boil. Shape potato mixture into balls approximately 1½ inches in diameter. Cook on high heat until dumplings begin to rise to the top of the pot, then simmer until cooked through center. Drain and drizzle with melted butter to prevent dumplings from sticking to each other.

Note: Try cooking one dumpling first to see if it holds together. If it comes apart, add more flour.

Serves 4.

Chapter Twenty-one

The last thing I needed when I got back to the PennDutch was to find Melvin Stoltzfus sitting in his squad car in my driveway. Zelda was sitting there with him, looking like something the cat had dragged in, played with for a few days, and then discarded. The woman was wearing a zebra-striped bathrobe, for Pete’s sake. If Zelda was that sick she should have stayed home in bed with an old sock tied around her neck. There are few things that a little Vicks rubbed into the throat won’t cure.

“Well, well, well,” Melvin said gleefully, as he clambered out of his car. Poor Zelda stayed behind, undoubtedly too sick to care.

“I am in no mood for niceties, Melvin, so spit it out.”

“You’re skating on thin ice as it is, Yoder. I advise you not to push your luck.”

“Melvin, dear, it’s the middle of June. The pond has long since melted.”

“Exactly, Yoder. This little visit is way overdue.”

I walked past him. “I already have guests,” I called over my shoulder. “You’re going to have to take a number.”

He had the nerve to laugh. He sounded like a choir of cacophonous katydids.

“Hold it right there, Yoder. I have a search warrant for these premises.”

I whirled around. “You what?”

If you haven’t seen a praying mantis smile, you haven’t missed much. “Here.” He waved a piece of paper. “A properly executed warrant to search the PennDutch and outlying buildings. It’s all legal.”

“To search for what? I sent the Peruvian nanny packing last week, and my Colombian drug shipment isn’t due in until Thursday.”

“Very funny, Yoder. I’m here to look for the victim’s diary. I also have a warrant to search your person.”

“My what?”

“Your person. That means you—your body.”

“Touch me and die, Melvin.” I know, those aren’t the words that should spring from the lips of a twelfth-generation pacifist, but since Melvin has the power to turn Mother Teresa into an ax murderess, I couldn’t help myself.

He spread his mandibles into a wide, mocking grin. “Well, I don’t have to touch you, now, do I? That’s why I brought Zelda with me. Zelda!”

Melvin had to call four times before she heard him. Although Zelda was a zonked zombie, nonetheless she zigzagged zealously toward us on her zebra-striped zoris.

“What are you searching for?” I demanded of Melvin.

“As if you don’t know,” he sneered.

“No, I don’t!” I screamed in frustration. “I don’t carry diaries around on my person.”

“Well, play dumb, then, Yoder. It’s your call.”

By then Zelda had zeroed in on us and was swaying precariously. She was clearly in no shape to pat anything, except maybe a pillow. It would be a piece of cake to push her over and then make a mad dash for my car. Thanks to the inn, and my ebullient personality, I had friends in every state but one.

“Don’t even think about it, Yoder,” Melvin snarled. “I’ll do it myself. The law says I can if I have a female officer in attendance.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

As he reached for me I let out a scream that woke the dead in nine counties and dried up dairy herds two states away. Susannah told me later that she was very proud of me. A world-class scream, she said. I could easily qualify for the International Sisters in Screams Competition to be held in Acapulco sometime the following spring.

Aaron heard me scream as well. He was on his way over for supper, along with his father, and he ditched Pops to come to my rescue. He said he immediately knew it was me. No one else in Bedford County had lungs with that capacity or a range that could simultaneously shatter glass and get the bullfrogs croaking.

My Pooky Bear, my hero, arrived just as I let out a second scream, this time with words.

“Get your grubby hands off me, Melvin Stoltzfus!”

“You heard her,” Aaron roared.

Actually, if truth be told, Aaron spoke very calmly. Far too calmly for a man whose sugar dumpling has almost been violated by a deviant detective.

Still, Melvin seemed stymied. He scratched his head longer than a flea-prone dog in a henhouse.

“Well,” he said at last, “then I’m just going to have to take you in to the station and search you there.”

“On what grounds?” Aaron asked sensibly.

“Obstruction of justice,” Melvin said and reached to snap a pair of cuffs on me.

Make no mistake about it, I am claustrophobic. Not about tight spaces necessarily, but about being physically restrained. I cannot abide constrictive apparel of any sort. For this reason, I won’t even wear a watch unless I absolutely have to. So you see, when I felt that cold, confining metal circle my wrist, it was a reflex pure and simple that caused me to fling my arm outward. And it was pure bad luck that made my fist connect with Melvin’s miserable mug.

Contrary to Susannah’s claims, I do not possess big muscles. I do not use steroids, nor have I ever used them. In gym class I could never get past two pushups, and I couldn’t do a chin-up if my life depended on it. But somehow I managed to lay Melvin out like a salami at an Italian picnic.

I didn’t lay a hand on Zelda, though. If it wasn’t against my religion, I’d swear to that on a stack of Farmer’s Almanacs. The fact that she hit the driveway just seconds after Melvin had to be due to her bad cold. I mean, I didn’t even graze her. As for the charge that I stuck out my foot and tripped her—well, I’d have to say that is complete nonsense. I stuck out my foot because impacting Melvin’s mandibles caused me to lose my balance. And that is the truth. A healthy woman would not have gone down so easily.

I had never been inside a jail before, and in a way it was more interesting than it was scary. Like I said, I can handle relatively small spaces—it’s being shackled that makes me flip.

Hernia has separate cells for the sexes, and apparently the women’s cell doesn’t get much use. There were only four names scratched into the walls, not including Susannah’s, and the mattress and pillow, while lumpy, were quite clean. I wish I could say the same about the toilet, although in all fairness its brown color was undoubtedly because of the hard water. After all, the sink was brown as well. Of course it was a peculiar toilet, in that it had actually been designed not to have a seat. Only a man could think that one up, I assure you.

There were four bunks, and I chose a top one on the off chance I would be getting company. I was just settling down to collect my wits when I heard the hall door open and two sets of footsteps approach. I closed my eyes and prayed for strength.

“Brought you some company,” a female voice said. It was Andrea, Zelda’s replacement, on loan from Bedford.

“Just remember I was here first, dearie,” I said in my gruffest voice. “You don’t mess with me, I don’t mess with you.”

“Ach! Magdalena Yoder, how you talk!”

“Freni!” I opened my eyes and sat up.

“Who else? Were you expecting the sewing circle from church?”

“Freni, you didn’t hit Melvin too, did you?”

“Ach! Of course not! I’m here to visit. Magdalena, if your mother could1—”

“Please,” I begged. “For once leave Mama out of it. Are you here to bail me out?”

She shook her head. She was wearing her black traveling bonnet, which looked rather out of place behind the bars.

“Aaron can’t post bail until tomorrow morning, after the hearing. You’re going to have to spend the night in here, I’m afraid.”

“But it wasn’t my fault!” I wailed. “You know Melvin Stoltzfus. Doesn’t that say it all?”

Freni nodded sympathetically. “Yah, but assaulting a police officer—make that two police officers—is serious business, Magdalena. Melvin is talking about having you tell time.”

“You must mean ‘do’ time,” I corrected her gently. “Freni, you know I can’t stay in here. I’ve got a murder to solve, not to mention a wedding—my wedding—on Saturday.” I glanced over at Andrea, who was discreetly looking away. “You and Aaron have to get me out, Freni,” I whispered.

Freni looked at me fondly with her faded blue eyes. That was as close as she could come to saying “I love you.”

“How, Magdalena?”

“I don’t know. Bring me a cake with a file baked inside. Sneak a gun in under your bonnet. Just get me out, and soon!”

Freni nodded pensively. “There may be a way,” she said. “There just may be a way.”

But she wouldn’t tell me more.

Susannah was my next visitor. She seemed right at home.

“I usually take that bunk over there,” she said brightly. “The mattress is better.”

“Where?”

She hauled Shnookums out of her cleavage and set him on the floor. The pathetic pooch slipped right through the bars and headed straight for the bottom bunk on the other side of the room. Somehow it managed to hop up on the bed, and, in an attack of nervous exuberance, piddled pitifully on the pillow.

“They allow you to bring him in here?” I asked calmly. Andrea was safely engrossed in the latest issue of Cosmopolitan (which, I learned later, Susannah had provided as a diversion).

“Yeah, but I’ve never been hauled in for assault and battery, Mags. Disturbing the peace is as far as I’ve gotten—if you don’t count DWI—and that was only twice. Besides, Melvin and me used to be friends, remember?”

“I’d rather not, dear, but now that you’ve brought up the subject, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to impose on your bond to see that I make mine. I am supposed to be married on Saturday, you know.”

Susannah rolled her eyes in sympathy. “Yeah. Bummer. But Melvin hates my guts now, Mags, since I dumped him. Says I broke his heart down to the bone, which sounds kind of silly to me. Hearts don’t have bones, do they, Mags?”

“Melvin’s does,” I said. “Are you sure there’s nothing you can do or say?”

She shook her head vigorously, no doubt admiring the way her hair looked in the reflection of the bars. “He says only Zelda can do it now for him, Mags, and you knocked her out cold.”

“I did not!”

I froze while Andrea glanced around the room and then buried her head back in other women’s cleavage.

“She was sick, Susannah. Shnookums could have toppled her over.”

“Well, you’re still my hero, you know.”

“What?” I hadn’t been so shocked since that time I was sent home from school early because of an approaching snowstorm and found Mama and Papa in a flagrante delicto. Well, their version of it, anyway. Papa was down to his long johns and Mama was in her flannel nightie. But it was broad daylight outside!

“Come on, Mags, don’t make me say it twice.”

“Please.”

“Okay, but then this is the last time. You’re my hero, all right? I mean, I’ve always looked up to you—because you’re my big sister—but now I really respect you.”

“Because I punched Melvin out?”

“And Zelda.”

I held my tongue that time. If Susannah wanted to believe that I had intentionally clobbered two cops, who was I to rain on her parade?

“So, can I get you anything?” my sweet little sister asked.