Butter Safe Than Sorry: A Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery

198 Pages·2010·0.91 MB·English

by  Tamar Myers

Butter Safe Than Sorry
Tamar Myers
From the national bestselling author of Batter Off Dead, the newest Pennsylvania Dutch mystery!
Mennonite innkeeper Magdalena Yoder is at the bank with her four-year- old son when three armed
Amish men burst in and start shooting and-more surprisingly-cursing. Magdalena protects Little Jacob, and
the robbers flee at the sound of police sirens.
When Jacob wonders why the bandits had mustaches-unlike all the other Amish men he knows-
Magdalena springs into action to catch the thieves. They may be armed, but they may not be Amish!
Tamar Myers

Butter Safe Than Sorry

Book 18 in the Pennsylvania Dutch Mysteries with Recipes series, 2010
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 décolletage 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.
“What did that child say?”
“I’m sure he was admiring you,” Sam said. He dotes on Little Jacob and
often gives him candy or other treats. I wouldn’t mind that so much if the sweets
weren’t stale.
I gave Dorothy a placating smile that was at least partly genuine. Despite the
animosity she feels toward me, I feel nothing more than pity for her.
“You always were beautiful, Dorothy. But if you want my opinion, this is a
classic case of less being more.”
She teetered closer for a few steps, her eyes flashing with rage. “Well, I don’t
want your opinion, Magdalena.”
“But you look like a hoochie-mama, dear.”
My four-year-old son doesn’t let anything slip by him. “Mama, what’s a
‘hoochie-mama’?”
“Hmm-remember the pictures I showed you of your aunt Susannah?”
He nodded. “She’s the lady in the hooch, right?”
“Right.”
“Oh, I get it! So that’s why she’s a hoochie-mama, right?”
“Well-”