Grape Expectations: A Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery With Recipes

by Tamar Myers

  While I prefer to fret and stew about upcoming unpleasant situations, there is something to be said for impromptu problem solving: mainly that one doesn’t have the time to get nervous. Not that I’m afraid of Zelda, mind you, but the acquisition of a sibling in middle age is, well, unnerving. The second I saw her house I made the decision to stop and to approach the visit as a dispassionate, but not uncaring, observer.

  Now that my hitherto unbeknownst sibling was no longer employed by the Hernia police department, she was virtually without transportation. I’d recently heard that the rattletrap she’d driven since high school was as reliable as a weather report, which meant that it sat idle in her carport most of the time. It was there now.

  Zelda didn’t answer her doorbell, which was not a surprise. The fact that the door was locked was indeed unexpected—not to mention a mite dangerous. In Hernia, unlocked doors permit neighbors to run in and turn off stoves or smoldering lamps without having to bother to look for the key. Fortunately, Zelda followed the practice of 88.8 percent of all Americans and hid it under the mat. (That figure, by the way, is made up, as are 64.7 percent of all statistics.)

  Zelda’s kitchen door is closer to her driveway than is her front door. It is the only one folks use, including Zelda. Always one to respect the privacy of others, I opened it a crack to make my presence known. “Zelda, dear,” I called softly, “are you in?”

  There was no answer, so I stepped in. Never the best of housekeepers, Zelda was nonetheless a biological Mennonite and thus incapable of sloth. It was, therefore, immediately obvious that something was dreadfully wrong. The sink was piled so high with dirty dishes that they spilled over onto the surrounding counters and even the floor. The refrigerator was standing open, empty except for an impressive collection of fungus species. The trash can was stuffed with frozen pizza boxes and emitting a smell rather like that of a dead sloth—I haven’t smelled a whole lot of them, mind you—thereby negating my Mennonite gene theory.

  “Zelda?” I called loudly this time. “Zelda!”

  Still no answer. I steeled myself for what might well be a horrific discovery. I’d read about folks being found in advanced states of decomposition. Perhaps it wasn’t the garbage can that was so offensive. Don’t ask me why, but in looking back at it now, it never even occurred to me to call Chief Hornsby-Anderson. I did, however, grab a broom that was propped against the pantry door.

  Just when I thought I had it together enough to proceed, I heard the strangest sounds coining from the general direction of Zelda’s bedroom. When, a few seconds later, I identified the weird noise, my blood ran cold.

  19

  I couldn’t believe my ears. The woman was still doing it! Melvin Stoltzfus had been arrested for murder—the murder of a Mennonite pastor, for crying out loud—and Zelda was still worshipping him. I mean that literally.

  Zelda Root had long been in love with my erstwhile nemesis—our former Chief of Police—even though the maniacal mantis was married to my other sister, Susannah. Somewhere along the line Zelda stopped putting her boss on a pedestal and plunked him on an altar in her bedroom closet. Well, not him exactly, but bits of his hair and nail clippings, which she keeps in an urn. The altar—a long, narrow table covered with a white linen cloth—also supports a life-size photograph of Melvin’s misshapen head and a pair of candles.

  All this I discovered by accident one day, while searching the house on another murder case. Of course I was shocked to the tips of my stocking-clad toes, but I was absolutely stunned when I soon learned that Zelda’s obsession with Melvin Stoltzfus had evolved into a religious cult.

  Somehow an overzealous Zelda had convinced sixteen other human beings that the object of her devotion was divine. This was before Melvin’s arrest and incarceration. When word of this bizarre religion became national news, as a result of his arrest, membership skyrocketed. Thousands of letters and calls poured in from around the country—although mostly from the blue states—overwhelming the faith’s founder and the sixteen original disciples. In fact, Lance Imhoff, our mailman, refused to deliver all the sacks of mail to Zelda’s house, citing a bad back as the reason. Lance goes to my church so I know better: the man is simply afraid of what he calls “dealing with the Devil.”

  “O Holy Melvin,” I heard Zelda chanting, “thy virtues are endless, thy promises sustain us in these, our darkest hours. O Great and Holy Melvin, send me a sign of thy favor. Assure us, your faithful followers, that thou rememberest us still.”

  I strode into the small bedroom where the blasphemy was taking place. Zelda was on her knees with her buttocks in the air and her head supported on cupped hands. In front of her on the homemade altar a dozen candles burned. The Noxema jar containing Melvin’s bodily detritus was covered with a purple velvet cloth. Across it lay a single long-stemmed white rose.

  Zelda seemed unaware of my presence. I would be lying if I said that I struggled with my conscience for more than a few seconds. A gal has to have fun, right? Besides, it was all horse pucky, and the sooner Zelda realized it, the better.

  “Fear not, Zelda Root!” I said, speaking in as deep a voice as possible. “I rememberest thou still. How can I forget that prodigious makeup?”

  “Oh Melvin,” Zelda squealed in ecstasy, “thou dost answer me.”

  “Indeedost I doodost.” Yes, I was being cruel, and not that it’s anyone’s business, but I have since repented. “Now, back to the subject of thy face paint. Dost thou not think it is too much?”

  “Is it? I mean, is that what thou dost think?”

  “Well, thou dost apply with it with a bricklayer’s trowel. In fact, there are rumors that Jimmy Hoffa is alive and well beneath that glop.”

  “Really? Funny, that’s what Magdalena Yoder always says—” Zelda’s buttocks lowered as her head came up and then turned slowly in my direction. “It is you!” She struggled to her feet, not an easy task considering she was wearing cork-heeled espadrilles worthy of a streetwalker. “Get out of my house. Now!”

  “I was only having fun, Zelda. Besides—”

  “Blasphemous, that’s what you are. I’m not going to listen to your excuses this time, Magdalena. If you’re not gone by the time I count to three, I’m going to call the— well, I’ll just throw you out myself.”

  “Your own sister?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your own flesh and blood?”

  “Magdalena, as usual, you’re not making a lick of sense. Have you been tippling again?”

  “Both of those times were by accident,” I wailed.

  “Then you’re just nuts.”

  “Then you’re the pot.”

  She teetered backward, as if actually afraid of me. “Case in point, Magdalena.”

  “As in the pot calling the kettle black. It’s you who qualifies for the loony bin. But never fear, big sister’s here. I’ll pick up the tab, on condition you attend all your therapy sessions. I know, a lot of psychiatrists have Gummy Bears for brains, but we’ll find you a good one. The we, of course, being your other sister and I. Susannah doesn’t have two nickels to rub together, but I’m sure she’s an expert on quacks. At any rate, not to worry; your sisters will see you through.”

  “Magdalena, please step back. You’re making me very nervous.”

  “Moi?”

  “I don’t have a sister. You know that. None of what you’re saying makes any sense.”

  “I’m your sister.”

  “You see what I mean?”

  “Zelda, I was planning to break this to you more gently, but you’ve left me no choice. So here goes: your mama and my papa were more than just friends. Thirty-five years later—that’s right, isn’t it?—voilé. You may call me sis, if you wish, but ix-nay on Mags. That’s still reserved for Susannah—and Gabe. I trust you understand.”

  “Not a word. Would it help if I understood French?” Alas, she was being serious.

  I sighed, unsure of how to make it any more clear. “Okay. Your mama had round heels a
nd wore heathen underwear. My papa had lusty loins and a wandering eye. Together they did the extramarital Macarena, and then nine months later you came along.”

  Zelda’s eyes widened as the meaning of my words penetrated her makeup. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That my mother and your father had an affair?”

  “Bingo.” I held my arms open wide to receive my sibling who had been denied to me since her birth. I am not a hugger by nature, but I was more than willing to make an exception for my half sister—provided it was brief, and she didn’t leave makeup behind on my clean broadcloth dress.

  Zelda advanced as fast as her silly shoes would allow, eager to clasp me to her enormous bosom. I closed my eyes, the better to endure the hug.

  “Hug away!” I cried bravely.

  What happened next was so shocking that I couldn’t even begin to process it until I was home, sitting at my kitchen table with a bag of frozen peas pressed against the left side of my face.

  “Ach,” Freni said when she got a gander at my slugged mug. She was standing in the kitchen doorway holding a pair of freshly plucked chickens. Incidentally, I am frequently asked by guests if chickens feel any pain during plucking. The answer is no. At least not nearly as much as they do when we slaughter them—which always comes first.

  “It’s worse than it looks,” I said. “My lip bled for ages. My nose too. I wouldn’t be surprised if my cheekbone is broken.”

  Concern was written all over my elderly cousin’s face. “You were in an accident, yah? With the car?”

  “No. My sister took a swipe at me. Her fist seems to have connected remarkably well.”

  “Susannah did this?”

  “My other sister—Zelda Root.”

  Freni plopped the hens in the sink and slipped off her heavy wool cape. “So, how long do you know?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I tell your papa and mama both that a secret this big they cannot hide forever. So now I am right, but they are dead. Where is the satisfaction in this?”

  “What?”

  Freni frowned. “Maybe she hit you in the ear too? I said—”

  “My ear is .fine! I just can’t believe what it’s hearing. Freni, are you telling me that you’ve known about Zelda all along?”

  She shrugged. “She was my friend, your mama. My cousin too. We had no secrets. And your papa—well, he kept no secrets from your mama. So then one day your mama tells me that your papa and Zelda’s mama made warm the quilt in August. I promised your mama that I would never tell anyone, and I have kept my promise.” Perhaps my hearing was affected after all. “What’s this about a quilt in August?”

  Beads of perspiration popped up on Freni’s brow. “Ach. It means to make new sweat when the chores are done.” “Apparently, but I still don’t know what it means.”

  My kinswoman was now bright red. “It means to make the hair strubblich when there is no wind.”

  Strubblich means “messy” in Pennsylvania Dutch. Suddenly it was clear to me.

  “They went swimming?”

  Freni slapped a small but meaty palm to her forehead. “They do the honky-tonky.”

  “Ah! The horizontal hootchy-kootchy!”

  “Yah, that’s what I said.”

  The Bible—Mark 9:43-47—instructs us to lop off body parts that cause us to sin. It’s a good thing most of us ignore this verse; otherwise a fair number of male politicians would be singing soprano in their respective church choirs. If I took this verse literally I wouldn’t have a face left Still, I was tempted to cut off my ears with a paring knife, and not because they’d caused me to sin but because lately they’d been tunneling unwanted information into my befuddled brain.

  “I can’t believe you’ve known this secret all these years and never told me.”

  “Your mama made me promise. I do not have the ship lips.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The loose ones that sink,” Freni said, her patience wearing thin. “And you, Magdalena, who told you?”

  “Doc Shafor.”

  “Ach! Who told him?

  “Papa.”

  “So then you told Zelda. Magdalena, why would you do such a thing?”

  “Because Doc said she was really hurting and needed a big sister.”

  Freni plopped her squat but generous body into a chair. “Why does she hurt?”

  “Because she is deeply in love with Melvin.”

  “Does Susannah know this?” she asked with remarkable calmness.

  “Yes. But I don’t think it bothers her. Susannah has always been sure of Melvin’s love.”

  Freni shook her head. “Melvin’s mama is my best friend, but still, I cannot understand why two women love that man.”

  “I’m with you there.”

  “But Doc Shafor is right, yah? It is your duty to love your sister. Even if she is Zelda-”

  “And even if she is idolatrous?” I clamped a hand over my miserable mug. I hadn’t meant to go that far. There was no way Freni was going to wrap her mind around the idea of a cult conducted from a closet in Zelda’s spare bedroom. The poor woman still seemed surprised every time she flipped on a switch and a light came on.

  “Ach, the Melvinites.”

  “You know about them?”

  “Magdalena, I am Amish, but that does not mean I have noodles for brains. We pray for the Melvinites every day.”

  “But—but—”

  “Yoder’s Corner Market,” she said, reading my mind, which might well be made of pasta, given its performance lately. “We hear all the gossip there. What we do not hear, the men tell us when they come back from the blacksmith shop.”

  I felt strangely betrayed. “I can’t believe I didn’t know you were aware of this. Why didn’t you say anything to me? Why didn’t you rant and rave?”

  Freni shrugged.

  “If I started my own religion, you’d be all over me like white on rice. Not that I would ever do so, mind you. I’m just saying ‘if’.”

  “I love Zelda because she is my neighbor—like the Bible says. But a crazy neighbor.” She looked away. “You, I love like a daughter. A mama has a right to worry about her daughter.”

  Perhaps it was just the bruise on my cheek, but I felt like crying. Who knows, I might even have hauled my skinny keester off my chair long enough to hug Freni. Then, because we are both genetically programmed to eschew showing affection, we might well have self-destructed. Simultaneous spontaneous combustion, the fire marshal would declare it, after having poked through the ashes. For surely all that would have remained after such an intense conflagration would be Great-grandpa Hostetler’s steel teeth (he sharpened them every Saturday, which was steak night) that I keep in the attic, and a fruitcake Cousin Alpharetta Augsberger gave me last Christmas. The latter has been re-gifted so many times that no one in the family is quite sure of its origins One rumor has it that this dart, oblong object isn’t even a fruitcake but a brick of some historical importance.

  The story goes that during the American Revolution the item in question was hurled at our ancestor, Franklin Delano Yoder, by a patriot. Franklin, like many of the Amish, was a pacifist and thus viewed as a traitor by many of his neighbors Even though Franklin was sorely tempted to toss the brick back at his tormenters, he slipped it into his saddlebag and rode off “The brick stops here,” he is purported to have said.

  At any rate, before I could haul my patooty off my chair to hug Freni, the doorbell rang.

  “I will answer it,” Freni said quickly. She hopped to her feet and bustled off leaving the door to the dining room swinging in her wake. I’m sure she was every bit as grateful as I was to escape the awkwardness of a full-frontal embrace.

  I rearranged the bag of frozen peas while I waited for her return. Strangely enough, I wasn’t angry at Zelda for attempting to alter my profile. But don’t get me wrong: I was not about to offer her the other cheek. It’s just that I understood where she was coming from. The Good Lord knows I was furious at Doc wh
en he told me, and I might well have punched him had he been fifty years younger.

  “Someone is here to see you,” Freni said, bustling back into the room. She headed straight for the sink.

  “Who?”

  “English.”

  To the Amish, anyone not of their faith is English. By this method of reckoning, a Buddhist American of Japanese descent qualifies as English, while an Englishwoman of the Amish faith—so far there aren’t any that I know of—would not be considered English. As a close relative and a conservative Mennonite, I am only quasi-English; it all depends on Freni’s mood.

  “Did you get a name?”

  “No.” She began scrubbing carrots that I knew for a fact had been washed previously.

  I wasn’t in the mood for Twenty Questions. Still wearing a bag of frozen veggies on my face, I went to see who it was.

  20

  Grape Parfait Pie

  9-inch crumb crust (recipe below)

  1 can (6 ounces) frozen Concord grape drink concentrate, thawed and diluted

  1 pint softened vanilla ice cream

  1 teaspoon grated orange peel

  Sweetened whipped cream

  Candied violets

  1 cup water

  1 package (3 ounces) strawberry-flavored gelatin

  Heat Concord grape drink and water to boiling. Remove from heat and stir into gelatin; stir until dissolved. Gradually add ice cream, stirring until melted. Add orange peel. Chill until thickened, but not set (15 to 25 minutes). Spoon into prepared pie shell. Chill until firm. Garnish with whipped cream and candied violets.

  Crumb Crust: Combine 1½ cups vanilla wafers, ginger-snaps or graham crackers, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup melted butter or margarine. Mix well. Using fork, press firmly against sides and bottom of 9-inch pie plate. Chill 30 minutes or bake at 375°F for 8 minutes and cool before filling.

  MAKES 8 SERVINGS

  21