The Crepes of Wrath

by Tamar Myers

  “Thank you, Miss Yoder.” He needed no further urging, and bolted for the house as if his life depended on it.

  I started down the long dirty driveway, praying that the Good Lord would send a car my way to give me a lift. Any car, just as long as it didn’t belong to Joseph Mast or Lodema Schrock. Then, for some inexplicable reason I burst into a rousing rendition of the old spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

  Ask, and you shall receive, the Bible says. It also says something about God working in mysterious ways. Well, let me tell you, these words are all true. I had just set foot on hard pavement, still singing, when the Good Lord sent a sweet chariot to carry me home.

  12

  Strictly speaking it wasn’t a chariot, but an Amish buggy. But it was awfully sweet of the driver to stop, although the fact that I was standing in the middle of the road, arms and legs spread, may have been a determining factor.

  “Good evening, Miss Yoder. Is something wrong?”

  I recognized the handsome face of Jacob Troyer, the young man who had asked to borrow my phone earlier that day. Sitting beside him on the front seat was his mousy little wife, Gertrude.

  For some reason I have always disliked the woman. Perhaps it is because—and experts will back me up on this—we instinctively have a visceral antipathy toward approximately twenty percent of the people we lay eyes on for the first time. At any rate, there is something about Gertrude’s scrunched-up face, her tiny eyes, and pinched lips—oh and that ridiculous button nose—that just sets my teeth on edge. It is nothing personal, I assure you, since I had never, until then, actually met the woman, but only seen her around at places like Miller’s Feed Store, Yoder’s Corner Market, and the county fair. And just so you put it out of your mind, my negative feelings had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that such a plain Jane had somehow managed to snare the most gorgeous man in the county, Gabe the Babe included.

  I smiled pleasantly at the handsome man and his homely wife. “There’s more wrong than you could shake a buggy whip at, but the bottom line is, I need a ride.”

  “How far?”

  I glanced at my watch. Alas, it was already twenty-five after six. Gabe would be well on his way to Stucky Ridge. So what was there to be gained by stopping at the nearest house with a phone? Hernia had no professional mechanics and the garages in Bedford were already closed. Why prevail upon a guest, or an untrustworthy sister, to pick me up, when a leisurely ride through the countryside might actually soothe my soul?

  “To the PennDutch,” I said decisively.

  Jacob nodded, and had a mumbled, and somewhat belabored conversation with his wife. A paranoid Magdalena might well have suspected that said spouse was not thrilled to pick up a hitchhiker. This one in particular.

  Finally Jacob turned back to me. “We would be happy to take you home.”

  The buggy was a partially enclosed two-seater, and logic would dictate that I take the backseat. That, however, simply would not do. After all, I am an older woman, and getting in and out of a buggy is an acquired skill which requires some athleticism. Then, too, it is hotter and stuffier in the covered section, and I had had a long hard day and might doze off, thereby missing my stop—okay, so my real motive for getting the front seat was the opportunity to sit next to Jacob Troyer. But I ask you, is it wrong to indulge in a harmless, and lustless, fantasy? Who would it hurt if I pretended, for mere minutes, to be married to the Amish equivalent of Leonardo DiCaprio?

  “Be a dear,” I said to Gertrude, “and slip into the back, will you?”

  “Ach!” The woman’s tiny eyes widened to their limited capacity.

  “Yah,” Jacob said, “the guest should sit up front.”

  So I did. And I will confess that was a thrill, trotting down the road at ten miles per hour, haunch to haunch with a hunk. And I will not deny that it gave me pleasure to see the astonished looks on the faces of motorists, or the more shocked and somewhat dismayed looks of the Amish we passed.

  Jacob enjoyed it too, I’m sure. The entire way he kept up an animated stream of chatter.

  “Are you friends of the Keim family, Miss Yoder? A relative perhaps?”

  “Some sort of relative almost certainly, but friends, no. I just dropped by to ask them a few questions.”

  “Yah? What sort of questions?”

  “You may as well know, dear. The police chief, Melvin Stoltzfus, has asked me to help him with the investigation into Lizzie Mast’s death.”

  “Ach!” I heard from the backseat.

  Jacob chuckled. “You are becoming a famous detective, Miss Yoder, yah?”

  “Yah,” I said proudly, and then remembering that pride cometh before the fall, grasped the side of my seat more tightly.

  “So, what have you learned already? Did Joseph Mast kill his wife?”

  I caught my breath. “My, aren’t we jumping to conclusions! Who said anything about Lizzie Mast being murdered?”

  Jacob shrugged his broad shoulders. “But everyone knows things. About Joseph Mast, I mean.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “He has a bug in his bean.”

  I smiled at the quaint Amish way of saying someone was crazy. “The Vietnam War,” I explained. “Joseph Mast saw things—experienced things—that you can’t imagine.”

  “Yah,” I heard from the backseat, “but did he have to go?”

  “He felt he was serving his country,” I said irritably. The last thing I wanted to do was defend a war—any war—or its participants, willing or otherwise.

  “Mennonites are pacifists, yah?” Jacob said.

  “Yes. But there are exceptions to everything, aren’t there?”

  “Our people do not go to war,” the voice from the peanut gallery said.

  “I know that, dear. You rely on others to safeguard your freedom of religion.”

  “Ach!”

  “What do Mennonites believe?” Jacob asked.

  Before I could answer, an approaching car swerved into our lane, steered sharply toward the shoulder, and then sped off like a bat from you-know-where. During the split second I saw the driver’s face, I recognized Lodema Schrock, my pastor’s wife. The look of pure envy on her normally smug mug was worth three new tires. It was almost worth a missed date with Gabriel Rosen.

  “Now what were you saying, dear?”

  “We want to know if you—ach, how do you say—practice infant baptism?” Gertrude had a voice as tiny as her mouth.

  “What was that, dear?”

  “I asked if you baptize babies?”

  “Of course we don’t,” I said calmly. “We’re Anabaptists just like you.”

  “Do you believe in the Trinity?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Do you worship Mary?” Much to my surprise, that question came from Jacob.

  “Of course not. I don’t know that anyone does.”

  “Do you take baths in beer?” Gertrude asked.

  “That’s the Presbyterians,” I wailed.

  “Yah?” they asked in unison.

  It was time to trot out the truth before they did something wild like trade their buggy for a bathtub of brew. Besides, I had a sneaking suspicion that the beer rumor, if traced to its origin, might land at my feet. “I don’t know that they actually bathe in it,” I said, “but they are very liberal compared to us.”

  Jacob shook his head. “I saw a magazine in the back at Yoder’s Corner Market. The woman on the cover was”—he looked away—“naked. Was she Presbyterian?”

  I had a feeling that if I said yes, he’d become a baby-baptizer in a heartbeat. Clearly lust, not money, is what makes the world go ’round.

  “I don’t know! She might have been a Lutheran—or a Buddhist even. Besides I’ve seen magazines like that, and I’m sure she wasn’t naked. She was probably wearing a bathing suit called a bikini.”

  “I’ve seen pictures of such bathing suits, also. Smaller than a man’s handkerchief,” our backseat judge said wistfully. “Surely a sin.�
��

  “Then don’t wear one, dear.”

  “Ach, but the picture I saw, she was not even wearing a bathing suit.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. Sam would never stock any magazines like that.

  “Well, enough talk of religion,” I said cheerfully. “How long have you two been married?”

  “Three years,” Gertrude said almost fiercely.

  “And you have yet to hear the pitter-patter of little feet? I mean, besides your own?”

  “The Lord will bless my womb when the time is right.”

  “Of course, dear. But in the meantime you get to play with your sister’s babies.”

  “Ach!”

  “My Gertrude and her sister do not get along so well,” Jacob said.

  “Really?” What an exciting day this was turning out to be. First, I got to butt heads with a goat, then I got to watch an Amish father butt heads with a rebellious teenager, and now, the pièce de résistance: the discovery that Amish siblings don’t necessarily get along. And twins at that!

  “Tell me, dear, does your sister ever drive you nuts—I mean really nuts—like you just want to reach out and strangle her? Maybe even reach your hand down her throat and pull out her tonsils?”

  “Jacob,” the mousy thing whimpered, “I think I forgot to feed the chickens. Can you drive faster?”

  Jacob gave the reins a hard slap. “Geeyaw!”

  The horse plunged into its traces. Unfortunately we had just entered a stretch of road known locally as Dead Man’s Curve, and were headed downhill. Now an Amish buggy can go remarkably fast, and they aren’t the stablest of vehicles. I know of several instances where buggies have tipped over, harming the occupants and, of course, injuring the horse. To say that we careened might be putting it strongly, but it was definitely yet another exciting moment. An adrenaline rush, as sister Susannah might have said.

  Given the fact I had no seat belt, and little to hold on to, can I be blamed for reaching out and grabbing the nearest solid thing I could find? And can I help it if that thing just happened to be Jacob’s knee?

  “Ach!” Gertrude squeaked. “Don’t touch my Jacob.”

  I quickly withdrew my hand. “Sorry, dear, I guess I got carried away in all the excitement.”

  “Yah? Like when you married another woman’s husband?”

  My cheeks stung. “That isn’t fair! I had no idea Aaron was married.”

  “You, the big English detective,” she muttered.

  “And anyway, how did you know about my bogus nuptials with a bigamist?” I wailed.

  “Ach!”

  Even Jacob gasped.

  “My mistake of a marriage,” I translated. “Does everyone in Hernia know?”

  “Like Rahab the harlot, some say.”

  “Who says?” I demanded.

  Gertrude twittered. “Like Mary Magdalene, I say. She is your namesake, yah?”

  “Now that’s hitting below the belt! I certainly can’t help my name, and besides, half the Amish women in Bedford County have Magdalena somewhere in their names.”

  We clattered across the narrow bridge that spans Slave Creek and made a sharp turn to the right on to Hertzler Road. This time, although I nearly toppled from my perch, I kept my hands to myself.

  The fact that I risked life and limb did not satisfy Gertrude. She had found my Achilles’ heel and would not let go.

  “Did you have to confess your sin to the elders?” she trilled.

  “That does it! Stop the buggy, Jacob!”

  “Ach, but Miss Yoder—”

  “That’s Magdalena Yoder. Stop the buggy this minute!”

  Jacob reined the horse to a snorting stop and I clambered down. No doubt I was snorting as well.

  “Thanks for the ride.” I forced the words out. And then I hoofed it home. Unlike Lot’s wife, I managed not to look back.

  I can only guess Jacob managed to back up, or else made a dangerous and illegal U-turn, because no one passed me on the way home.

  I limped into the PennDutch at half past seven, thanks to the rock I had stepped on. My plan was to sneak through the back kitchen door, fix myself a sandwich to eat while soaking my foot, and then creep off to bed undetected. I know, I own the inn lock, stock, and barrel, and by rights can sail through the front door at any hour I please, but when the going gets tough, and the tough get going—I’m usually at the tail end of the pack—I find the back door more suitable. It was the door I used as a child. Mama reserved the front door for company, and since her personality, plus a little rock salt, could make a fine ice cream, the front door was hardly ever opened.

  Given the hour, I expected the guests to be in their rooms, or perhaps in the parlor reading, or maybe even engaging in polite conversation. I certainly did not expect to find one in the kitchen, chowing down like there was no tomorrow.

  “Good gracious,” I said, “that is an extraordinarily large hoagie.” The sandwich in question could have fed a small third world nation, or maybe even a family of five from Ohio.

  Darlene Townsend smiled, a ring of raw white onion dangling from her teeth. She scooped it in with a flick of her tongue.

  “I guess I’m still a growing girl.”

  I frowned. The woman was already too tall for her own good.

  “Be careful, dear. Remember what happened to the tower of Babel. The Lord doesn’t like it when folks poke their heads into Heaven uninvited.”

  Darlene laughed. “You’re funny, Miss Yoder, you know that?”

  “I’m a virtual laugh riot,” I said, and hobbled over to the phone. Gabe’s answering machine picked up on the sixth ring.

  “It’s me,” I whispered, mindful of someone else in the room. “Something happened that you aren’t going to believe, and that’s why I didn’t show up on the ridge. Call me when you get in.”

  The second I replaced the receiver in its cradle, the phone rang. I grabbed it.

  “Gabe?”

  “In your dreams.”

  “Melvin! Melvin Stoltzfus!”

  “That’s my name, Yoder, don’t wear it out. Look, there’s been another development.”

  “You’re dropping out of the race?” I couldn’t disguise the hope in my voice. During my long walk home I’d come to the sobering conclusion that I, Magdalena Portulacca Yoder, was not going to save the world. So what if Melvin was an egotistical incompetent? Getting to the bottom of Lizzie’s death was his problem, not mine.

  “No,” he snarled, “I’m not dropping out of the race. I called to tell you that there’s been a second murder.”

  “Oh?” It may not have been my problem anymore, but it was definitely getting more interesting.

  “She was hit by a car. There was a witness.”

  “Who was hit by a car?” My volume must have risen because Darlene was looking at me.

  “It happened this afternoon. About five-thirty. She was crossing North Elm when the car came barreling out of nowhere and mowed her down. Well, actually, the car only grazed her, but it sent her flying into that stop sign there at the corner of North Elm and Beechy. Her head busted wide open like a melon.”

  “Whose head?” I shrieked. “What’s the victim’s name?”

  “You should listen harder, Yoder. I already told you it was Thelma Hershberger.”

  I gasped. My knees felt weak, and what with my sprained ankle and all, I desperately needed to sit. Unfortunately all the kitchen chairs were out of my reach. Not partial to pride, I slid to the floor. At least I wouldn’t collapse and bust my head open like a melon.

  “Who witnessed it?” I was more in control now, and spoke softly.

  “It was a phone tip. The caller wouldn’t say.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Yoder. Thelma may not have been my type, but she was all woman.”

  I let that pass. “What makes you think it was murder and not your standard hit-and-run.”

  “The caller said Thelma tried to dodge, but the car veered in her direction
.”

  “I see. What about the car? Your anonymous caller get the make, color, and year?”

  “Nada.”

  “Nothing?”

  “That’s what I said, Yoder.”

  “Melvin,” I said tiredly, “I don’t have the energy to put up with your rudeness. My ankle hurts and—”

  “Sorry, Yoder.”

  I was too tired to jiggle a pinkie in my ear. I had to trust that it was working. If Melvin had indeed used his least favorite word, I’d be a fool not to jump on it.

  “Apology accepted.”

  “So does this mean you’re going to investigate that, too, for me? Because I’m in the middle of a campaign here, Yoder. I can’t have two unsolved mysteries on my hands.”

  “I didn’t know bugs had hands.”

  Melvin must have been desperate for my help. Although he swallowed loudly several times before speaking, his voice was remarkably calm.

  “Can I count on you, Yoder?”

  “You can count on me,” I promised, and then hung up before he could ask me to do his taxes and dirty laundry. Besides, I owed it to Thelma to track down her killer. She’d come to me for help and I’d let her down.

  Ignoring Darlene’s scrutinizing gaze, I hauled myself to my feet, labored over to the sink, removed a plastic basin I store beneath it, and began to prepare my foot bath. In my mind there is nothing quite as comforting as soaking your tootsies—wounded or not—in a tub of warm Epsom salts.

  “Oh, Miss Yoder, you needn’t do that. I signed up for the A.L.P.O. plan, remember?”

  “Of course I remember, dear. I’m not planning to wash up after you, I’m planning to soak my foot.”

  She looked away from her sandwich for the first time. “What happened?”

  “It’s just a little sprain. I took an unexpected stroll.”

  “If it’s a sprain, then you need to apply ice.”

  “Is that so?” I continued to fill the basin. A lesson I have learned late in life is it’s possible to acknowledge advice without actually taking it.

  “You’ll be sorry if you apply heat first. Trust me, Miss Yoder, I work with sports injuries all the time.”