Thou Shalt Not Grill

by Tamar Myers

  The crowd roared again.

  I wasn’t being nasty by any means. Everyone in town calls Robert Troyer by his nickname. In fact, he’s proud of it. This rather handsome man dropped out of high school his senior year when his father died. In order to support his mother and two little sisters, young Robert got a job at a garden center over in Bedford. The place was called the Onion Patch at the time. The new employee was not afraid to get his hands dirty and today, ten years later, he owns the store. You guessed the rest—it’s now called Dirty Bob’s.

  “If you win this round,” I deadpanned, “you also win a free manicure at Selma’s House of Beauty.”

  The crowd went hysterical. Even though he now has a dozen employees, Dirty Bob still digs with his hands. He feels he needs to set an example, and when one is transplanting delicate seedlings, that’s the only way to do it. It’s certainly no secret that Dirty Bob has dirt embedded beneath his nails that no soap and water will reach.

  “Dirty Bob will be driving a John Deere that he rebuilt by himself and—” I gasped as a couple of dormant brain cells kicked back to life and I had a mini-epiphany. “Uh, ladies and gentleman, Sam Yoder will be taking over as announcer.”

  “What?” Sam was on his feet in a nanosecond. “Magdalena, what the heck are you saying?”

  Actually, Sam used a worse word, but as I already had a hand over the microphone, only belching Betty—her pop was long gone—heard him. “Sam, if you be a dear and do this one favor for me, I’ll make your fondest wish come true.”

  “My house or yours? If it’s mine, we’ll have to pick a time when Dorothy’s not there.”

  I was disgusted but not shocked by my cousin’s proposition. He stopped being a Mennonite the day he married Dorothy, a liberal-leaning Methodist. I’m not saying that all Methodists cheat on their wives, merely that the town grocer’s apple had fallen far from the tree. One might say that it rolled into another orchard altogether. In cases like that, one can expect just about anything to happen.

  “Samuel Nevin Yoder, you should be ashamed of yourself. What would your mama say if she could hear you talking like that? More to the point, what will your wife say when I tell her?”

  “You wouldn’t dare tell Dorothy, because it would hurt her.”

  I sighed. “If you were a little boy, I’d turn you over my knee right now and spank you.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty, Magdalena.”

  The crowd had begun to buzz impatiently, and at least one of the contestants was revving his engine. I uncovered the mike.

  “Hold your horsepower,” I barked. I turned to Sam. “Look buster, what I had in mind was free advertising for your store. Between pulls you get to announce your overpriced specials. A head of wilted lettuce for one ninety-nine. That kind of thing.”

  “It’s a deal,” Sam said.

  I practically threw the microphone at him. Thanks to Dirty Bob, all I needed to do was to make one phone call and I could prove whether Buzzy Porter had been the one to dig up Hernia’s time capsule or had surprised someone else in the act.

  11

  Grilled Chicken Breasts with Eggplant, Creole Style

  2 lemons

  2 whole boneless chicken breasts, skinned, split, and trimmed

  Salt and whole black peppercorns in a pepper mill

  1 medium eggplant (about 3A pound)

  1 cup all-purpose flour

  1 large egg, well beaten, in a wide, shallow bowl

  1 cup fine cracker crumbs or matzo meal, spread on a plate

  3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter or extra-virgin olive oil

  1cup Creole Sauce

  2 tablespoons chopped parsley

  Grate the zest from 1 of the lemons and then juice them both through a strainer. Put the chicken breasts in a shallow nonreactive stainless steel or glass bowl and sprinkle them with the grated zest, a large pinch of salt, and several generous grindings of pepper. Pour the lemon juice over them, turning them several times to coat them, and set aside to marinate for 30 minutes (or as much as 8 hours or overnight, covered and refrigerated).

  Wash the eggplant under cold, running water. Peel and slice it crosswise into 814-inch-thick slices. Lightly salt both sides of the eggplant slices and put them in a colander set in the sink or over a plate. Let diem stand for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare a charcoal grill with coals and light it. When the coals are glowing red and lightly ashed over, spread them and position a rack about 4 inches above them. Let the rack get very hot. Or preheat the oven broiler at least 15 minutes before you plan to use it.

  Wipe the eggplant with a paper towel and pat dry. Lightly roll each slice in the flour, shake off the excess, then dip it in the egg, coating all sides. Lift it from the egg, allowing the excess to flow back into the bowl, and then roll it in the crumbs or matzo meal. Shake off the excess and put the breaded eggplant on a wire rack.

  Lift the chicken from its marinade and pat dry. Spread it on a platter in one layer and lightly brush it and the eggplant with butter or olive oil. Put them both on the grill (or on a broiling rack under the broiler), buttered side toward the heat. Grill/broil until the chicken breasts and eggplant slices are browned on the side toward the heat, about 3 to 4 minutes. Brush lightly with butter or oil, turn them, and grill/broil until the chicken is cooked through and the eggplant is tender and browned on both sides, about 3 to 4 minutes longer, depending on how hot the fire is. The eggplant may be ready a little before the chicken. Place the eggplant on a warm platter, lay a chicken breast over each slice, and spoon Creole Sauce (see Chapter 15) over them. Sprinkle with parsley and serve at once.

  SERVES 4

  12

  Lucky for me Melvin has a perennial zit the size of Zimbabwe on his backside. Susannah has told me far too much about this condition, which she fondly refers to as “my Sugar Buns’ auxiliary brain.” Up until now I’ve been a good Magdalena and stifled my impulse to ask how she knows which brain is which. At any rate, after escorting Buzzy’s body to the morgue, my nemesis hung out in the hospital waiting room until Dr. Luther had the time to lance the police chiefs eruption. Dr. Luther may well be meaner than a tick- covered snake, but he’s a competent surgeon, and my brother-in-law survived the operation with his real brain intact. He was, however, in a particularly foul mood.

  “What now?” he shouted into his cell phone.

  “How do you know it’s me?”

  “Yoder, I’m not in the mood to play your silly games. It’s you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but—oh, never mind. Melvin, dear, I need you to do me a big favor.”

  “I’m not going snipe hunting with you again, Yoder. Twice was enough.”

  “Melvin, I want you to look under Buzzy Porter’s fingernails and tell me what you see.”

  “You’re an idiot, Yoder.”

  “Just do as I say, or come election day you’ll be lucky to get two votes.”

  “Like I said, you’re an idiot. Susannah can’t vote twice.”

  “Quit calling the kettle black and look under Buzzy’s nails. Call me back the second you do so.”

  Melvin muttered something uncomplimentary, but I could hear him shuffle off to do as I’d ordered. On the way to the morgue he stopped for an ice cream—possibly in Beijing, China. When he returned my call he belched before speaking.

  “So I looked at his nails. What about them?”

  “Are they dirty?”

  He sighed. “Now you tell me.”

  “Melvin, all you—”

  “Hang on.” He walked back to China for the chocolate syrup and whipped cream he’d forgotten. “They’re clean, Yoder. So what?”

  “Then he didn’t dig up the time capsule.”

  “What time capsule?”

  “That’s right, you don’t know. The time capsule—you know the one up on the ridge, by Lovers’ Leap? The one we’re supposed to open on Wednesday? Well, it’s missing.”

  To say that Melvin was miffed at me for withholding information is an understateme
nt. He ranted and raved and invented some curses that even a fallen Baptist is unlikely to know. He went so far as to suggest that I engage myself sexually in a position that is anatomically impossible to achieve (don’t ask me how I know). Of course, Melvin was right for feeling this way. But did he have to be so rude?

  In my defense, I hadn’t intended to keep him in the dark. I’m so used to him being an utter incompetent, that it just didn’t occur to me to fill him in. For that I ought to be ashamed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said for the zillionth time. “Really, I am.”

  “You ought to be, Yoder. Besides, why would anyone want to steal that thing?”

  “Maybe if we could figure out the answer to that, we could figure out who took it. Oh well, at least we know it wasn’t Buzzy.”

  “Oh yeah? How do we know that?”

  “Because you can only dig so far with a shovel. Then you have to get down on your hands and knees and dig around the box with your fingers to get it loose.” Melvin snorted. “This Buzzy guy could have started the digging and then the other guy surprises him and finishes the digging. Clean nails don’t mean nothing.”

  “Anything.”

  Melvin made another trip to Beijing—this time for nuts. “You have a hearing problem, Yoder? I said ‘nothing.’ ”

  “That’s a double negative, dear. Anyway, I want you to check his pants. Especially the knee area.”

  “Check them yourself,” he said and hung up.

  My first impulse was to lose my temper. But fearing that I might never find it again, I wisely decided to take Melvin’s suggestion. If you want something done right, do it yourself—even if it means scrutinizing a dead man’s pants.

  I was halfway back to my car, trotting past the gorgeous Victorian homes on upper Elm Street, when I ran into Stanley Dalrumple. I mean that literally. Arms and legs went flying in eight different directions, although all the limbs belonged to me. On the plus side, I learned that I could always have a second career, hiring myself out as a human threshing machine. The downside was that when I finally landed, I skinned both palms and the tip of my nose.

  Stanley, who is slight of stature, appeared none the worse for wear. “Miss Yoder, are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right. My hands hurt, my nose hurts—why weren’t you looking where you were going?”

  “I was looking. You were the one who ran into me. You looked really zoned out—kind of like a zombie.” “Well, I have important things to think about.” Stanley snickered. “Yeah, I bet you do. Like what slop to feed us for lunch.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The young man knew he was no match for my lacerating lingua. “Never mind,” he mumbled.

  But it was too late. My hackles were hiked and I needed to let off steam. Otherwise my eardrums might blow, taking half the town with them.

  “For your information, buster, Freni Hostetler is one of the best cooks in the county. And not that it’s any of your business, but I had my mind on a murder case I’ve been asked to solve.”

  Die corners of his mouth twitched as he struggled to keep his sarcasm in check. It was a losing battle.

  “Did the victim eat Miss Hostetler’s cooking?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. The victim was Buzzy Porter.”

  Stanley Dalrumple didn’t even blink behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “That figures.”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “The guy was a jerk.”

  “I seem to recall that you found him amusing.”

  “He was still a jerk.”

  “Mr. Dalrumple, I don’t know about Hollywood, but here in Hernia being a jerk is not sufficient cause to murder someone.”

  He stared at me with all the emotion of a snake. “Miss Yoder, are you some kind of policewoman?”

  “You might say that.”

  He showed no reaction. “I’m not a suspect, am I?”

  “I never said you were. But until I can prove who the killer is, everyone is a suspect.”

  “I guess this means you’re going to want to ask me some questions.”

  “You guessed right. And now is as good a time as any.”

  He sighed. “Well, if you must know, I wasn’t just at that stupid tractor pull.”

  The sound of the cheering crowd in the background made that obvious. Besides, he was headed from the opposite direction when I ran him down. While it is possible a man his age would be strolling about town to view all our fine architecture, it was about as likely as Freni dancing naked at Wednesday’s picnic. I decided to return his blank stare and hopefully make him nervous enough to tell me the whole truth and nothing but. Alison says I give her the willies when I do this. Believe me, I’ve had plenty of practice.

  Stanley Dalrumple caved like an overmined coal shaft. “Okay, so I was out looking for some weed. Big deal.”

  It was my turn to snicker. “You won’t find any weeds in these lawns. This is the high-rent district.”

  He had the audacity to laugh. “Not that kind of weed. I’m talking about pot. Cannabis. You know, the kind of weed you smoke.”

  I gasped. “You won’t find that either. This is Hernia, not Harrisburg.”

  “Ha, you’d be surprised, Miss Yoder. I’m pretty good at sniffing it out—no pun intended. Had to learn how to find it quick after nine eleven, what with airport security being what it is. Was going to pick me up some in Pittsburgh, but the old bag didn’t give me a minute to myself.”

  “Old bag? By that you would mean Octavia Cabot- Dodge, the down-on-her-luck diva?”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  I realized with a start that the upstart must have been successful in his search for illegal stimulants. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be returning to the pull so soon.

  “Where is it young man? Hand it over.”

  He finally blinked. “Do you have the authority to arrest me?”

  “What if I said ‘yes’?”

  “You don’t, do you?”

  If Alison talked to me that way I’d ground her. Maybe even make her copy a page from the dictionary. The one on respect. Young people these days have no respect for their elders, which is one of society’s major failings, if you ask me. In my day we had to respect even the people we loathed—which is not to say I hated Granny Yoder. It’s just that I had great respect for her cane, which met my backside on more than one occasion. I know, today that would be called child abuse, and rightly so. But I don’t think I’m any more screwed up than the average person, do you?

  Lacking any way to discipline the impudent youth, I waggled a finger at him—presidential style. “You will not be smoking that stuff on my property. If I so much as smell one molecule of suspicious smoke, I’m calling someone who does have the power to arrest you. Is that clear?”

  “Yeah, yeah. You done lecturing now?”

  “Not quite. If you offer any drugs to my foster daughter, Alison, I’ll see that they not only lock you up, but throw away the key.”

  “If you say so.”

  That last comment irritated me from the tips of my stocking-clad toes to the core of my bun. “I still have a hard time believing you found marijuana in Hernia.”

  Stanley’s smile seemed almost genuine. “Met this kid in the crowd. Could tell right away he was a pothead. Followed him back to that house.” He pointed at a yellow Victorian with white gingerbread trim. It’s always been one of my favorites.

  “That’s impossible. That house belongs to Andrew and Lydia Byler. They’re the salt of the earth. Their son, David, is—describe this kid, please.”

  “No prob. Red hair, a million freckles. Looks like he could open a bottle with his teeth.”

  “That’s him!” I said in dismay.

  To his credit, young Stanley did not rub it in. “Miss Yoder, I’d be happy to share my stash with you.”

  “What?”

  “A couple of tokes and you’ll be feeling real mellow. Come on, try it. You look like you deserve to chill out for a while. This stuff is
guaranteed to make you feel like you’re floating on a cloud.”

  “It really does that for you?” The truth is I’m so high strung I can fly a kite on a windless day. To my knowledge, the only time I’ve ever felt totally relaxed—and I mean all the way back to when I made my first appearance as a six-pound, seven-ounce, squalling bundle of annoyance—is when I inadvertently drank a pitcher of mimosas. What would be so wrong about feeling that way again? Perhaps the Good Lord created the cannabis plant so that we could enjoy its benefits.

  Stanley dug into his pocket and withdrew a plastic sandwich bag filled with what looked like dried oregano. “Oh yeah, it really does that. When you’re on this, you won’t give a shoot about your problems.”

  He actually used a stronger word than shoot, and the shock of it brought me back to my senses. “Get behind me, Satan,” I cried.

  If someone from the Guinness Book of World Records had been watching, I would have earned a spot on those pages for having broken the land speed record for a human being. When I got to my car I was panting so hard I had to wait a full five minutes before I could drive.

  As I’ve stated before, Hernia Hospital is a misnomer. Think of it as a twenty-four-hour clinic where Amish women come for births that are too complicated for midwives to handle, and where children receive stitches after falling off bicycles and skateboards. There is a small surgical unit on the premises, but the only time it was ever used was when Veronica Saylor had a bunion removed. That event made national news because the bunion was shaped like Elvis Presley’s head, and Dr. Luther, who performed the operation, refused to turn the growth over to his patient. Veronica sued and won custody of her former body part. She later sold the hunk of inflamed tissue on eBay for eight thousand dollars.

  Of course, I wasn’t visiting the hospital to get my skinned palms and nose treated, but to get another look at Buzzy Porter. Well, at least his clothes. At any rate, you can imagine my surprise when I entered through the front door and found Alison and the Littletons sitting in the minuscule lobby.