The Hand that Rocks the Ladle (24 page)

The Redigers, bless their heavenly Mennonite hearts, ran to my rescue. “Miss Yoder, is that you? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine as frog’s hair,” I rasped, spitting out granules of weathered pavement.

Donald helped me to my feet. “You’re wearing handcuffs!”

“What?” Gloria took a closer look. Her eyes widened, and I knew what she was thinking.

“It has nothing to do with sex!” I wailed. “I’ve been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?” they echoed.

“This bleached blond bimbo babynapper, who also happens to be a nurse, nabbed me in the nursery.” They shook their heads in confusion.

“I can explain everything, but there isn’t time now. Listen, you’ve got to help me.”

Donald still had a steadying hand on my shoulder. “Of course. We’ll get you inside. There are phones in there. We can call the police.”

“No!” I twisted painfully to get the service building door in my line of vision. “She’s sadistic! She’s threatened to kill Freni’s granddaughter if I cause any trouble. What I need you to do is to write down the license plate number of this car and call the police. Tell them there’s—oh, my gosh!”

Gloria grabbed one of my shackled arms. “What is it?”

“It’s Dr. Bauer! Her evil accomplice.”

“Quick,” Donald said. “Our car is this way, we’ll think of something.”

“But I can’t leave! And if he sees—”

“Too late. He’s headed right this way.”

“Oh, Lord,” I wailed, “what am I going to do?” That wasn’t just an expression mind you. I was praying again.

Gloria tugged on my arm. She seemed almost as panicked as I. “You won’t be of any help to the baby at all if you’re dead—if we’re all dead!”

It was perhaps unforgivable on my part, but I fled with the Redigers. Since Dr. Bauer had seen me talking to others, the ax had already fallen. The only hope the Hostetler baby had at all was if I survived to tell the police and the F.B.I. everything. You understand, don’t you? I mean, at least there was a chance to save the child if I spilled my guts to the authorities. If I spilled my guts on the pavement—well, then, no one benefited.

The Redigers were parked only three spaces away, but we barely made it. Dr. Bauer was running toward us like a crazed gnome and shooting! Shooting! Right there in the middle of a service-area parking lot. Bullets were zinging past our ears and ricocheting off the pavement and surrounding cars like out-of-control fireworks. Think of it as the Fourth of July, but without the Roman candles.

Thank heavens the dinky doc was such a lousy shot. All three of us managed to get into the Redigers’ car without being hit. Their car wasn’t hit either, or if it was, no serious damage had been done. It started immediately, and by the way Donald drove, you would never guess he had even as much as a drop of Mennonite blood. I don’t know how many Gs the car was capable of doing, but it produced at least one.

“Geeeeeee!” I said as we careered out of the lot on two wheels, going the wrong way, and then jumped the median while simultaneously making a U-turn, much like those teenage boys I’d see on skateboards in Bedford.

Once on the turnpike, however, he melded smoothly into the traffic and drove at the prevailing speed. Both Donald and Gloria seemed remarkably calm, almost as if nothing had happened. No doubt they were folk of greater faith than I. Those Indiana Mennonites have always seemed to me to be a stronger strain than we here in the east. No doubt it’s those prairie winds that toughen them up.

“It’s best not to draw attention to ourselves,” Gloria said. “We could be pulled over by a state trooper and ticketed.”

“Yes, but isn’t that what we want?”

She turned in the front seat to face me, and in the light of a passing car I could see that she was wearing lipstick. Lipstick! And not just a pale pink either, but harlot red. How had I missed that before? Maybe those Hoosier Mennonites were emotionally strong, but at least one of them was spiritually challenged.

“I don’t think we should be putting our faith in the world, do you?” she asked.

“What?”

“Perhaps that wicked little man already called the police and fed them some lies. If no one believes us, and we end up in jail, how is that going to help that sweet little baby? No, I think we should keep driving until we can take refuge with some people I know we can trust.”

“Like who? Oprah Winfrey?” I’ve never seen her on TV, but she’s stayed twice at my inn. I’d trust that woman with my life, wouldn’t you?

Donald laughed. “Gloria has a cousin up the road.”

“How far up the road?”

“Just a little ways,” she said. “Maybe half an hour. You’ll be all right until then, won’t you?”

I grunted. “I hope your cousin is a locksmith. These handcuffs are starting to chafe.”

“Maybe if you just close your eyes and try to relax,” Donald said. He had a soothing voice, and would have made a good radio announcer.

Frankly, a little shut-eye might do me good. The gunfire in the parking lot had sent my adrenaline soaring. Without that surge, I very much doubt if I would have been able to reach the Redigers’ car, even with their assistance. But now, safely in the backseat of their car, I felt the adrenaline drain from me like water from an unplugged bath. I leaned back against the seat. It was soft, cool leather.

Why not just stretch across the backseat and take a little nap? I was safe now, in the capable, if somewhat naive hands of the Indiana Mennonites. Perhaps sleep would do me some good—at least it would take my mind off the handcuffs. Yes, sleep, my body screamed. Sleep, sleep!

I often fight my body’s urges, but this one did not involve breaking any of the Ten Commandants, or even the so-called Seven Deadly Sins. After all, it was dark out, and thus quite permissible to sleep. Cautioning myself not to enjoy the experience too much, I closed my eyes and allowed myself the luxury of sliding sideways along the soft leather seat. My right cheek came to rest on the buttery cushion, but it wasn’t as comfortable as I’d imagined.

“What on earth?” I opened my eyes and sat up.

There, lying on the seat, was a binky. You know, a baby’s pacifier. I picked it up with shackled hands.

“Anything wrong?” Donald asked.

“I didn’t know you had a baby.”

“We don’t.”

“Well, somebody does, because here’s a pacifier.”

“It’s a rental car,” Gloria said. “That must have belonged to the previous user.”

“Yeah, probably.” But in the light of an encroaching automobile I saw a package of disposable diapers. It had been shoved halfway under Gloria’s seat. For a few seconds I was even able to read the print. Newborns to three months. “Which company did you rent this from, because—”

I heard the click of the safety being released before I saw the gun. I’m no expert, but the pistol Gloria was holding looked remarkably similar to the one belonging to Nurse Hemingway.

Great Granny Yoder’s Toad Stroganoff

♦

(Heart-smart and ahead of its day)

1 pound ground turkey

½ cup chopped onion

½ cup sliced fresh mushrooms

8 ounces linguine

1 can diced tomatoes

Brown and crumble meat in large fry pan. Add onion, mushrooms, and tomatoes and cook over slow-to- medium heat. Cook linguine according to package directions to al dente. Add to other ingredients and simmer until heated through.

Serve with green salad and crusty rolls. Serves four normal people, or one Yoder.

"Curiosity killed the cat,” Gloria snarled. “And know it’s going to kill you.”

I was stunned. It’s one thing for a Mennonite to slip a little and paint her lips, but this was almost beyond comprehension.

“This is a joke, right?”

“Shut up.”

“What? Donald, dear, tell your wife this isn’t funny.”

“You’re damn right,” Donald said. “It isn’t funny. Now shut up like she says.”

Telling a living, breathing Yoder to shut up is like telling the Mississippi to flow backward. In the words of Susannah, “It ain’t gonna happen.”

“You guys aren’t Mennonites, are you?” I asked, as the possibilities began sorting themselves out.

“We never said we were.”

“But you are both so clean-cut—well, Donald, you are at any rate. Your wife used to be, until she dolled herself up to look like the whore of Babylon. I thought sure you were Mennonites.”

The gun wavered. With all due respect to my home state, the Pennsylvania Turnpike has more than its fair share of potholes.

“Well, you thought wrong,” Gloria snapped. “Now shut up.”

“Certainly, dear.” I managed to keep my lips zipped for several seconds. “Wait, a minute. You guys aren’t part of that babynapping ring—oh, my gosh, you are, aren’t you?”

The scarlet lips parted and pursed. “Bingo.”

“But you helped save me from that dinky doc and that ditzy blonde.”

“That ditzy blonde,” Gloria growled, “is me.”

“Give me a break, dear. That was a bottle job, if I’ve ever seen one. Her roots were dark as sin. Your hair, on the other hand, is a rather attractive shade of brown. A little bit darker than mine maybe, but nice all the same.”

Gloria’s free hand reached up and whipped off a wig. I gasped. “Get out of town!”

“Do you know how hard it is to find a wig with braids? Damn things’s hot,” she grunted and tossed it over her shoulder. It landed on the seat beside me, looking for all the world like a tailless muskrat.

“It is you!”

Gloria laughed maniacally. “You didn’t really think I was a dumb Mennonite, did you?”

I figured I was already on that train—so to speak— bound for Glory, so what did I have to lose? One may as well die talking.

“Yes, I did think you were a Mennonite, but then again, I’m famous for jumping to conclusions. I often trip myself up that way. Speaking of tripping, did you hear about the blonde who tripped over her cordless phone?”

“Huh?”

“It’s supposed to be a joke,” Donald said. I could see only one corner of his mouth in the rearview mirror. He was definitely grinning.

“That same blonde studied for a blood test,” I said, “and failed.”

She thrust her gunhand closer to me. “Oh, I get it, these are blonde jokes.”

“Of course, they don’t really apply to you,” I said quickly, “seeing as how you’re a fake blonde and everything.”

“Don’t you ever shut up?”

“Not if I can help it, dear.”

“This will help you,” she said, and undid her seat belt. The next thing I knew the cold barrel of the pistol was pressed against my forehead. “One more word out of you and I’ll blow your ______ head off.”

There is simply no need to shock you with her choice of adjectives.

“She means business,” Donald said quietly.

I prayed like I’d never prayed before. I prayed for what some may think to be the biggest miracle of them all; I prayed that the Good Lord would keep my big mouth shut. Yes, I know, God shut the lions’ mouths on Daniel’s behalf, but a Yoder mouth is even a taller order.

My prayers were heard. Although I wanted to ask Nurse Hemingway, or whatever her real name was, if she’d heard the one about the blonde who spent twenty minutes staring at an orange juice carton because it said “concentrate,” I couldn’t as much as move my lips. In fact, I became downright fearful that I was paralyzed. I even tried communicating that with my eyes, but I couldn’t get them to roll.

It occurred to me that perhaps the Almighty had turned me into a chunk of salt—like Lot’s wife—just to protect me from myself. This was an exciting, if somewhat disconcerting thought. What if the Good Lord forgot to desalinize me when the threat of danger had passed? While I firmly believe that my soul will return to my Maker, and have no qualms about my earthly body pushing up daisies—at the appropriate time—it had never occurred to me that I might end up in somebody’s water softener. Or worse yet, sprinkled on sidewalks to melt snow.

At least my ears still worked. “She’s scared stiff,” Gloria chortled, before finally turning away.

Maybe that was it. I prayed that it was. I prayed that when the time was right, I’d get full use of my faculties back. And if that was not to be, if I really was a chunk of salt, I asked that I might be broken down into smaller pieces, like kosher salt, and used in an ice cream churn. An electric ice cream churn. I’d always wanted one of those, but for some reason, I’ve never gotten around to springing for one. Well, if I got out of this scrape alive, I was going to make a trip into Pittsburgh and buy the finest electric ice cream maker on the market. And I was going to buy a size twenty shift and proceed to eat so much of my homemade ice cream that I filled out the dress. I’d make vanilla, of course, and strawberry, and in peach season . . .

I discovered I was licking my lips, and they weren’t the least bit salty. I tried moving my tongue, quietly, and within the confines of my mouth. It seemed to work quite well. Meanwhile, Donald and Gloria had involved themselves in a nasty argument.

“I say we pull over at the next picnic area and kill her.” Gloria had a somewhat nasal voice and it was beginning to get on my nerves. How I could have pegged her for Hoosier is beyond me.

Donald, however, still sounded Midwestern. “Then what?”

“Then we toss her in the woods. Look at all these damn trees. Have you ever seen so many in your life?” Donald thumped the steering wheel with the ball of his left hand. “It’s night. We don’t know how deep these woods go. There could be a house anywhere. Someone might see us.”

“If there were houses, there would be lights,” Gloria snapped. “What do you suggest we do, lug her all the way back to New Jersey? Maybe put cement boots on her and throw her into the Hudson?”

“Actually, I was thinking of the Delaware River. Or better yet, since we’ll be cutting up on 81, why not take her up to the top of Delaware Water Gap, and throw her off? I bet lots of people have fallen there. Even jumped.”

“Yeah? Well, why would someone jump from a cliff high enough to kill them?”

Even I knew the answer to that. No doubt if you gave Nurse Hemingway a penny for her intelligence, you’d get back change.