Tamar Myers: Batter off Dead

“Fear not, Little Jacob,” I said. “It’s just your cousin Sam, laughing-although frankly, it sounds more like a donkey in heat braying for a mate.”

My son’s response was to wallop me in the ribs. No doubt he was punishing me for my crude reference to an ass desirous of sex; he was, after all, very much a minor and had every right to be upset. What a smart lad he was already turning out to be. Perhaps I should reconsider his name; Einstein Yoder-Rosen seemed a trifle pretentious, and I’ve never especially cared for Albert. But seeing as how he was the child of my dotage, and Sarah in the Bible had named the child of her old age Isaac, and Sir Isaac Newton was undoubtedly very bright…

Sam brayed again, sending Little Jacob into paroxysms of calisthenics. Finally the gravity of the situation permeated my thick skull; if I could hear Sam, then the door to Sam Yoder’s Corner Market had to be open, which meant that at any minute the door to the police station would open, and the young, albeit handsome, whippersnapper from the Golden State would find me spying on him. I had to act fast.

The first thing I did was dump the contents of the padded envelope into my sensible, Mennonite-size purse (if I can’t carry last Sunday’s church bulletin in it without having to fold it, the bag is too small). All that fell out was a key. That’s it-just a key. A house key at that.

Now, although it is neither here nor there, it is my assertion that every middle-class American is in possession of at least one key, the function of which escapes him or her. I had just such a key on my ring. It was supposed to be the key to the back door of my house, even though it didn’t fit any of my doors.

Yet I was almost positive I was given this key by the builder himself, after the PennDutch was restored following the tornado that leveled it and left me lying facedown in a cow patty. But one thing I did know for sure: it had been manufactured by the same company that had produced the key in Minerva J. Jay’s padded envelope, and a switch would surely go unnoticed for the meantime.

If only I could get the envelope resealed. The kettle method wasn’t going to work; I knew from experience that once an envelope has been opened, it needs tape to be sealed. But maybe the chief had some glue-That’s when I noticed a roll of stamps. Somehow, in the next minute and a half, I managed to detach the useless key and thrust it deep within the envelope, transfer some of the glue from the stamps to the envelope with my tongue, and then seal it. After that I returned said envelope to its proper place in the drawer. What I couldn’t quite manage was settling my huge bulk back into the chief’s chair before he stepped back in.

Banana Sour Cream Pancakes

with Cinnamon Maple Syrup

Adapted from a recipe from Bette’s Oceanview Diner in Berkeley, California, these are melt-in-your-mouth moist and tender. The Cinnamon Maple Syrup is easy to assemble while the pancakes are slowly cooking.

4 large eggs

2 cups sour cream

2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

1-2 bananas, peeled and cut into thin slices

Cinnamon Maple Syrup (recipe follows)

1. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until light and bubbly. Stir in the sour cream until blended. Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt onto the liquid ingredients. Fold until blended.

2. Heat a large nonstick griddle or skillet over medium heat until hot enough to sizzle a drop of water. Brush with a thin film of vegetable oil, or spray with nonstick cooking spray. For each pancake, pour a scant ¼ cup batter onto griddle or into skillet. Immediately arrange 3 or 4 thin slices of banana on the surface of each pancake. Adjust the heat to medium-low. Cook the pancakes slowly until the tops are covered with small bubbles and the bottoms are lightly browned. Carefully turn and cook until lightly browned on the other side. Repeat with the remaining batter.

3. Serve immediately with Cinnamon Maple Syrup.

MAKES ABOUT TWELVE 4-INCH PANCAKES.

Cinnamon Maple Syrup: Combine 1 cup maple syrup, 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, and ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon in a small saucepan and cook, stirring to blend, until the mixture boils. Remove from heat and let stand until pancakes are ready to serve.

“Miss Yoder, you’re up!”

“It’s these ding-dang hemorrhoids-pardon my French, Little Jacob.”

“You know, of course, that’s insulting to the French people.”

“Are ding and dang really swear words?” The first rule of good espionage is that should one get caught, one must rely on the D word: deflect.

“No,” Chris said, “they aren’t, but they are intended as replacements for swear words, so it is as if you said the real words.”

I pretended to let that sink in. “I see your point,” I said after an uncomfortable length of time had passed. “You know, Chief, it just occurred to me that you are no longer quite as sweet and respectful as you were when you first moved here from California.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “I’m not?”

“To the contrary, dear, if you were a character in a book, you might even be labeled annoying. No doubt some impatient reader would toss the book across the room and promise never to buy another of that author’s books ever again.”

The drawer I’d ravaged was still slightly ajar, but young Chris absentmindedly closed it with his knee. “Wow! I didn’t see that one coming.”

“We never do, do we? Now, be a dear and hand me the goodies. You wouldn’t happen to have an extra cup around here for the milk, would you? I’d drink from the carton, but I usually end up spilling on myself, and these maternity outfits are bling-blang expensive.”

“You don’t want it for your tea?”

“What? And ruin a perfectly good, albeit cold, cup of Constant Comment?”

In the end, until we received an autopsy report from Harrisburg, there was nothing young Chris and I could do but make a list of everyone who could have touched Minerva J. Jay’s hotcakes that morning, and then jot down a few notes listing why he, or she, would have, or would not have, done the dastardly deed. There were “would haves” for every possible suspect, if only because Miss Jay was not a likable person.

This not to say, I must hasten to add, that disliking someone gives an individual license to murder-or Lord only knows, I’d be dead-but rather that everything else being equal, and one was bent on killing someone, then why not make it Minerva? I think I speak for everyone when I say that she was not going to be missed; even her pet cat, Mr. Patty-cakes Woo-woo, followed the paper boy home one day.

As for the “would not haves”-while young Chris was willing to cut a few of the older folks a break, I saw them all as having the potential to take a human life. I know, that sounds absolutely horrid of me, and perhaps it was the hormones speaking, but when you really think about it, you need to look no further than the Holy Bible (and the New King James Version at that), to see that this is true.

Folks in the Good Book were always smiting each other, and a lot of the smiters are supposed to be our heroes. Why, just look at King David. He sent poor Uriah into battle at the front of the line, just hoping he’d get killed, so he could do the palace hokey pokey with Bathsheba. Well, guess what? Uriah did get killed, which makes King David not only a murderer, but an adulterer, yet we recite his psalms frequently in church and at just about every funeral.

My point is that if the man who wrote “The Lord Is My Shepherd” was capable of such a dastardly deed, then the hunched-over little old woman with the unromantic name of Frankie Schwartzentruber can also be a dangerous killer. Of course, there was no way someone as inexperienced in life as Chief Ackerman could be expected to reach the same conclusion. So when I was quite through sharing my opinions, and pretending to listen to him (by which time I’d long finished the artichokes and the milk), I decided to hightail my fanny across the street and torture a man who’d made my life miserable as a child.