Grape Expectations: A Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery With Recipes

by Tamar Myers

  “Okay, okay, I’m going on in. You don’t need to push me.”

  “I’m not touching you, Miss Yoder.”

  Perhaps it was the hand of God then. Building on that, I imagined God’s protective hand gently pushing me along through the winding passage that cut through Agnes’s clutter. When I got to the fork in the road, the Good Lord gave me a nudge in the right direction.

  I know that God really doesn’t have a body—at least not exactly like yours and mine. But the funny thing is, as I was being propelled forward by the hand that really didn’t exist, I started to believe I could see it. The fingers were long like Mama’s, but the nails were bitten short like Papa’s. Maybe they were reaching out from the beyond to help me when I needed it most. Who knows?

  At any rate, although I felt protected, worming my way back to the kitchen, when I finally got there my self- centered little heart leaped into my throat. Lying face down on the linoleum floor, the beam from my flashlight casting a pale yellow circle on her back, was the lifeless form of Agnes Mishler. Don’t ask me how I knew she was dead at that point, but I did. Just as I knew that the Lord was still with me, I knew that Agnes wasn’t.

  A slight shift of the torch beam revealed the black polymer handle of a cheap butcher knife. So much for the method employed in Agnes’s demise. I swung the heavy flashlight around the room, the dim yellow circle it produced glancing off various objects like a stone ricocheting across Miller’s Pond: the refrigerator, groaning under the weight of magnets; a vintage metal bread box held together by rust; the bottle of wine Agnes had offered to share; the stiff gray strings of a dry mop head leaning against a corner. But no killer—at least none that I could see.

  Still, it would be stupid to stay a second longer, and you can bet your bippy that I didn’t. Hansel and Gretel could not have opened the back door any quicker. A greyhound chased by a hungry cheetah couldn’t have raced around to the front of the house any faster. I nearly knocked the chief over as I leaped on the porch.

  “Miss Yoder—”

  “I was right! She is dead on the floor.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes—at least about the floor. And I’m pretty sure about the dead part too. There’s a butcher knife sticking out of her back.”

  “I’m calling Chris for backup,” she said as much to herself as she did to me. “The sheriff too. After all, this isn’t even in the town limits—”

  “Yes, it is. It’s just like Grape Expectations. Our founding fathers had great expectations—no pun intended— when they set the town boundaries. Some folks say they would have annexed western Maryland as well had it not been for all the rowdies down there.”

  “I’m still calling the sheriff. I’ll ask him to issue an APB on Hiram Stutzman—”

  “It wasn’t Hiram.”

  Chief Hornsby-Anderson stood with her mouth open wide enough to catch a nightjar. That is a dangerous thing to do, especially if one is allergic to feathers. Sometimes even if one’s not.

  “Delores Wrensberger choked to death on a whippoorwill,” I said kindly.

  “What?”

  “It was awful. She’d pretty much swallowed it whole, except for some of the tail feathers—”

  “No, what did you say about Mr. Stutzman?”

  “I said that he didn’t kill poor Agnes.”

  “But she said his name just before you heard the gunshot.”

  “I’m not sure it was a gunshot. Not anymore.”

  “Miss Yoder—”

  “Look, Chief—may I call you that? Or would you prefer Chieftess?”

  “Chief is fine. So is Olivia.”

  “If Hiram Stutzman killed Agnes Mishler, it would be because the queen of nosy had the skinny on him. But he didn’t, because if he had, he’d have smashed that bottle of wine to smithereens, which, of course, he didn’t.”

  “Is that Pennsylvania Dutch?”

  “No, it’s common sense.”

  “I see.” She cogitated for a moment. “What would you suggest we do next, Miss Yoder? I mean, I know what I’m going to do, but I’m curious as to what you think we—I mean, I—should do.”

  Believe me, I wasn’t feeling a speck of schadenfreude. Chief Olivia Hornsby-Anderson had come to Hernia with sterling credentials. This was her first murder case here. But was it her first ever? If so, that would explain how it is we were able to afford her. Stupid me. I’d been so excited to get a woman applicant for the job that I’d only glanced at her performance rating, not the record itself. Haste makes waste, Granny Yoder always used to say as she scurried about our house, waving her cane at whomever was displeasing her at the moment.

  “If I were you—which, of course I’m not—I would do just as you said. Call the sheriff Also call the Hernia Rescue Squad. Tell them to bring the ambulance. Then I’d wait right here by the squad car—better yet, inside—while I sent Miss Yoder—that would be moi—next door to interview the Mishler brothers. Maybe they saw something that is pertinent to the situation.”

  “Miss Yoder, you’re a mind reader! That is exactly what I was going to say next.”

  “Then there is no need to say it, dear.”

  I waited until she was safely locked inside the Crown Vic before tiptoeing through the pine trees that separated the two Mishler homes.

  34

  The Mishler brothers had taken their act inside but had yet to put on any clothes. Nonetheless, when Big Goober opened the door, he didn’t seem even a trifle embarrassed.

  “We’ve got company,” he called to his brother, Little Goober. “It’s Magdalena Yoder.”

  Not that I looked closely, mind you, but their nicknames have nothing to do with their respective anatomies. It may well be, however, that these appellations have affected the men’s personalities. Their given names, by the way, are Obeline and Aubergine.

  Little Goober dashed into the room with surprising speed for a sixty-some-year-old. Nude but not rude, he proffered a pink hand for me to shake. Rude but not crude, I politely declined, citing a possible cold virus as my reason.

  “Would you like to sit down?” Big Goober gestured at a pair of plastic-covered sofas.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I can only stay a minute,” I said.

  “Would you like some hot chocolate?” Little Goober asked. “Agnes said that you are very fond of it.”

  I’d expected to find the brothers’ residence toasty warm, to make up for the heat lost during their outdoor shenanigans. But it was downright cold in there. Perhaps they preferred a colder house so as not to shock their systems so much when they went outside. At any rate, one certainly couldn’t fault the Mishler brothers’ hospitality—although on the other hand, drinking a beverage, even a hot one, made by a naked man was unappealing.

  “No thanks. Like I said, I can only stay a minute. I just have a question or two to ask.”

  “This sounds serious, Brother,” Little Goober said to Big Goober.

  “It is,” I said.

  “We’re within our constitutional rights,” Big Goober said. “This is a private road. We own all the land from Remount Road down to here. Even the parcel with Agnes’s house. What we do in pursuit of happiness is nobody’s business, because nobody, except for us, is supposed to be on our land.”

  “Agnes doesn’t own her house?”

  “She owns the house, just not the land. Not until we die. Then she owns the whole kit and caboodle.”

  “Relax, fellas. I’m not here to complain about your nudity. Trust me, I’ve seen it all before, and on a grander scale. I just want to know if either of you heard a gunshot this evening.”

  Little Goober grinned. “Of course we did. Me and Brother were shooting bottles off the stump. Just like we do every evening after supper.”

  “But in the dark?”

  “Makes it more fun that way. Of course you have to be careful doing the happy dance if you win, ’cause it can make for a pretty nasty cut. See?” Little Goober lifted his right foot and held it against his left
knee.

  I made the mistake of looking at the sole of his foot. Unfortunately, my eyes refused to stop there.

  “I’ve seen nastier,” I said. “So, you guys didn’t hear any other shots?”

  “Should we have?” Big Goober asked. “Is Silas Hemphopple still shooting deer out of season?”

  “He is. But that’s not what concerns me now. While you were shooting, did you see any cars drive up to your niece’s house?”

  “No.”

  Big Goober gently elbowed his brother aside. “We saw the police car. But that’s it. Is that how you got here, Magdalena?”

  “I’m afraid so. I have some bad news for you guys. Maybe you should sit down.”

  Despite the fact that both Goobers were well into their sixties, perhaps even seventies, they sat like obedient schoolboys. I forgot myself for a second and started to sit on the couch opposite them. A grease smear tipped me off just in time.

  “Agnes has been injured.”

  Big Goober reacted first “How bad?”

  “She might be dead—but maybe not I don’t know. I found her lying on her kitchen floor. There was a butcher knife— Well, it didn’t look good.”

  They staggered to their feet “We’ve got to get Over there,” little Goober said.

  “Wait” Big Goober turned to me. “I think I heard another car.”

  “When?”

  “During supper. Brother and I always watch Jeopardy when we eat, so that had to bd between six thirty and seven.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was seven thirty on the dot It was all jelling, except for one thing. How could Agnes have called me from the construction site? I slapped my forehead with an open palm.

  “Dummkopf!”

  “Magdalena, Brother and I do not tolerate folks calling us names.”

  “Sorry, Goobers, that was meant for me. I’m such an idiot.”

  “You shouldn’t call yourself names either, Magdalena.”

  “Because there’s already too many people calling you names,” little Goober said solemnly.

  “What? Who calls me names?”

  “Everyone—”

  “Sometimes Brother speaks first and thinks later,” Big Goober said. “You understand that, don’t you, Magdalena?”

  “Why, I never!”

  “See what you’ve done, Brother?” Little Goober said. “You’ve gone and made her mad.”

  “I am not mad. Look, guys, we need to focus on Agnes. Can either of you think of anyone who might have had it in for her?”

  “Everyone.” This time it was Big Goober who generalized.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Well, as you know, our niece likes to—uh—”

  “Interfere,” Little Goober said.

  “Right. She’s kind of nosy. Gets that from her mama’s side of the family. Come Halloween it’s her house that gets TP’d, not ours. You asked about cars, Magdalena. Well, there was this real fancy car come out here about lunchtime. Don’t remember the exact time, but it come before All My Children.”

  “I just adore Erica Kane,” Little Goober said.

  “Move it along, Big Goober,” I said gently. “I need to get back to Agnes’s house. So do you.”

  “Okay. There was a man in that fancy car, but he wasn’t one of our own.”

  “He was English?”

  “Yeah, that Iraqi fellow who owns them dry cleaning stores. I’ve seen him a couple of times in Yoder’s Corner Market.” Both Goobers, by the way, deign to dress when they come into town. The alternative is Hernia’s hoosegow, a damp and chilly place certainly not amenable for sitting around in the altogether.

  “He’s not Iraqi—he’s as American as you and I and apple pie. And his ancestors came from Lebanon.”

  “Big diff.”

  “Actually, it is.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “How long did Mr. Rashid stay?”

  Big Goober scratched his nose. “Can’t say exactly, but it must have been during All My Children when he left. Brother eats raw carrots every day for lunch, so I gotta turn up the TV pretty loud. Anyway, I looked out the window when the show was over. By then the car was gone.” They were anxious to check on their niece, and so was I, but I wasn’t quite through. “How do the two of you get along with Agnes?”

  You could have knocked Big Goober over with a feather. Little Goober plopped back on the plastic-covered sofa on his own accord. Both men turned milk white, but only as far as their shoulders.

  Big Goober found his tongue first. “Are you making some kind of accusation, Magdalena?”

  “Moi? Why would I do such a thing?”

  This time Little Goober won the draw. “Because you’re a nosy busybody with a razor sharp tongue who helps the police out since the only ones Hernia can afford are too dumb to know their noses are attached to their faces.”

  “Uh-oh,” Big Goober said, taking a step back from me. “I’m afraid this is one of those times Brother speaks first and thinks second.”

  “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but a good orthopedist can mend them. But your relationship with Agnes appears to be irreparable. For one thing, she claims that the two of you are as broke as beggars and that this is really her house.”

  Big Goober’s eyes narrowed. “Does she have proof?”

  “Let’s say she does.”

  “Our brother had no right to give her our house,” Little Goober said. “She already had one that he gave her when she turned twenty-one.”

  Big Goober glared at Little Goober. “You spoke first again.”

  “I don’t care. This is a free country, isn’t it? She can’t evict us just because we choose not to wear clothes”

  The wail of our town’s ambulance seeped through the crack at the bottom of the door and around ill-fitting windows. I waited until it died down before responding.

  “Not only can she evict you,” I said, “but if she’s right about ownership, consider it a done deed.”

  “I hate her,” Big Goober said.

  “Enough to try to kill her?”

  His eyes disappeared behind slits. “I’m going to ask you to leave, Magdalena.”

  “Very well.” I walked with exaggerated slowness to the door. “You boogers—I mean Goobers—coming with me?”

  “No.”

  “I would have,” Little Goober said, “but then you pis—”

  “—tachio ice cream,” I cried, clapping my hands over my ears. Unfortunately, as often happens when I clap my ears, I boxed them as well with a ten-pound purse.

  Hernia’s heroic EMTs are nothing if not efficient. By the time I returned breathless to the crime scene, Agnes was loaded into the van and hooked up to a tangle of tubes. The chief, who was standing by the rear doors, welcomed me anxiously.

  “I was getting worried, Miss Yoder,”

  “I’m a big girl, or haven’t you heard?”

  “So they tell me.”

  “What’s her condition? Is she dead?”

  “She’s lost a lot of blood, but there’s still a pulse. The knife is still in her, by the way.”

  So much for my psychic ability. Oh well. We Mennonites take seriously the biblical prohibition against witchcraft and by extension seers of any sort. Scratch any fortuneteller and you’re much more likely to find a lapsed Presbyterian than one of the Plain People.

  “Chief, you might want to question the two Goobers.” “Excuse me?”

  “Her uncles. Big Goober and Little Goober. Their Christian names are Zibeline and Aubergine.”

  “Those are Mennonite names?”

  “Their mother was a pagan from Paris, for what that’s worth. Their father was one of the few local Mennonites who didn’t claim conscientious objector status during

  World War Two. Anyway, after the war he brought her back from Europe. But after giving him three sons she returned to Europe, and he never heard from her again. He even hired a private detective to hunt her down, but to no avail. Rumor has it that she may real
ly have been a German war criminal and fled back home when the noose here started tightening. One theory even has it that she was Eva Braun.”

  “Hitler’s girlfriend?”

  “Yah-voll.”

  “Forgive me, Miss Yoder, but you people have got to be the biggest gossips in the world.”

  “Thank you. You should hear what they say about you—oops.”

  “Maybe some other time. So tell me, why should I be interested in interviewing Miss Mishler’s fraternal uncles?” “

  Because they hate her guts. And that, my dear, is not gossip.”

  “They said that?”

  “Big Goober’s exact words—though I may have added the guts.”

  “Thanks, Miss Yoder. You’ve been a big help, just like I knew you would. Have you ever considered applying to a police academy? Because if you ever do, you have my recommendation. And I’m sure Sergeant Ackerman would be happy to endorse you as well.”

  “Hmm. Would I have to share a locker room with sweaty young male cadets?”

  “I’m sure they have separate facilities. At least we did in California.”

  “In that case I’ll pass. Now, chief, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a long day.”

  “Indeed it has. Enjoy your evening, Magdalena.”

  I had no intention of enjoying my evening. My investigation into the death of Felicia Bacchustelli had only just begun.

  35

  Concord Grape Cake

  1 package (18 ounces) white cake mix

  4 eggs

  l½ cups cold Concord grape juice

  1 envelope (2 ounces) whipped topping mix

  Confectioners’ sugar

  In large mixer bowl, combine cake mix, whipped topping mix, eggs and 1 cup cold Concord grape juice. Blend until moistened. Beat 4 minutes at medium speed. Pour into greased and floured 10-inch tube pan. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes or until cake tests done. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Put out onto wire rack. Using metal skewer or straw, poke holes in surface of cake. Carefully spoon remaining ½ cup Concord grape juice onto cake until it is absorbed. Cool cake. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

  MAKES ONE 1-INCH CAKE