Batter Off Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Tamar Myers
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.
Sam Yoder and I are first cousins, except that we’re not. That too is a long story, and not one to be covered here, except to say that I only recently found out that I was adopted—oh, not only that, but I’m also a full sibling to my nemesis, Melvin Stoltzfus, who happens to be an escaped murderer. Now, where was I?
“Magdalena, you look lost.”
“Huh?” I was standing just inside the door to Sam’s shop, and I must admit I seemed to have forgotten my agenda on account of something being not quite right.
“But as beautiful and radiant as ever. I swear, Magdalena, if there is anything sexier than a pregnant woman, it’s you.”
“For your information, Sam, I am a woman. However, in light of the fact that I need to pick your meager brain, I shall interpret what you said as a compliment.”
Sam Yoder’s Corner Market has just three aisles, and as the front door boasts a strap of sleigh bells, it is almost impossible for him not to keep track of his customers. His extra vigilance meant that either he had some particularly juicy (and perhaps helpful) gossip to share, or else he wished to pursue his sex comment further. Just for the record, Sam is an ex -Mennonite, having left the fold in order to marry a Methodist.
“Trust me, Magdalena, I have never doubted your womanliness—not since you blossomed in the fifth grade like an Israeli desert. And of course my brain is yours for the picking, although I prefer to think of it as intellectual foreplay.” He winked lasciviously.
“Shame on you, Sam; you’re a married man.”
“Yes, but unhappily so. The last time Dorothy and I consummated our marriage—”
I clapped my hands over my ears, but not so
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.
Sam Yoder and I are first cousins, except that we’re not. That too is a long story, and not one to be covered here, except to say that I only recently found out that I was adopted—oh, not only that, but I’m also a full sibling to my nemesis, Melvin Stoltzfus, who happens to be an escaped murderer. Now, where was I?
“Magdalena, you look lost.”
“Huh?” I was standing just inside the door to Sam’s shop, and I must admit I seemed to have forgotten my agenda on account of something being not quite right.
“But as beautiful and radiant as ever. I swear, Magdalena, if there is anything sexier than a pregnant woman, it’s you.”
“For your information, Sam, I am a woman. However, in light of the fact that I need to pick your meager brain, I shall interpret what you said as a compliment.”
Sam Yoder’s Corner Market has just three aisles, and as the front door boasts a strap of sleigh bells, it is almost impossible for him not to keep track of his customers. His extra vigilance meant that either he had some particularly juicy (and perhaps helpful) gossip to share, or else he wished to pursue his sex comment further. Just for the record, Sam is an ex -Mennonite, having left the fold in order to marry a Methodist.
“Trust me, Magdalena, I have never doubted your womanliness—not since you blossomed in the fifth grade like an Israeli desert. And of course my brain is yours for the picking, although I prefer to think of it as intellectual foreplay.” He winked lasciviously.
“Shame on you, Sam; you’re a married man.”
“Yes, but unhappily so. The last time Dorothy and I consummated our marriage—”
I clapped my hands over my ears, but not so