Just Plain Pickled to Death by Tamar Myers Page B

eye on you?”
    “The hell you say, Yoder. If Mr. Weaver wants to sit beside me and turn the pages, that’s all right, but you’re not going to be anywhere around. The last thing I need is for you to get some crazy ideas from what’s in there and then nm off and try to play hero.”
    “Moi?”
    But it was no use trying to act innocent. Melvin knew from experience that I am not one to sit idly by while the police take their own sweet time with things.
    “Let me put it this way, Yoder. If you get in my way at all, I’m going to arrest you for obstructing a police officer in the pursuit of his duty.”
    It sounded like a bogus charge, but it didn’t matter. As long as Melvin did the job we paid him to do, then I would stand back, and gladly. I had a million things still to do for the wedding, and none of them had anything to do with solving twenty-year-old murders.
    “Pursue your duty, then.” Before I left his office, I waved the pink diary at him one more time for good measure.

Chapter Thirteen
    I drove up to Stucky Ridge without a picnic lunch. Most people do. The crest of Stucky Ridge is the highest point for miles around, and while it offers wonderful picnic views, most of its visitors are teenagers who park along the rim and do everything but look at the scenery. They, of course, come at night.
    Stucky Ridge is what we in the East often call a mountain, but what folks in the West might call a wrinkle, or a hill at most. According to geologists, Stucky Ridge was once at the bottom of a primeval swamp, and as a consequence was blessed with a collection of swamp creatures which somehow got compressed and turned into coal. Clarence Stucky, who owned most of the ridge, strip-mined the coal and then turned the denuded mountain over to the town of Hernia for use as a city park. That was thirty years ago, and thanks to the valiant efforts of the Greater Hernia Plant and Pick It Garden Club, the scars left by the strip mining have been concealed, if not healed.
    The north end of the ridge, however, was never mined. Since the days of the first white settlers it has been continuously inhabited by Amish and Mennonites other than the Stucky family, and Clarence was unable to strip the coal out from under them. The current residents may be confined by a wrought iron fence and their view obscured by a copse, but they aren’t about to move. The official name for this little community is the Settlers’ Cemetery, and that’s where my parents are buried.
    According to a document filed at city hall and on record in Harrisburg, the descendants of Hernia’s first settlers may be interred on Stucky Ridge in perpetuity. Five male Stucky ancestors signed this document, and there it is, in black and white for all current-day Stuckys to see. Now that the entire ridge has been deeded over to the city it is no longer a problem, but I can remember the day when Amish buggies and Mennonite cars encircled the cemetery to keep Clarence’s bulldozers from coming any closer.
    At any rate, both Mama and Papa are descended from Hernia’s earliest settlers, in so many ways it would make your head spin to try and keep them all straight. Suffice it to say that Papa’s main connection was his great-great-great-great-great grandfather Christian Yoder, and Mama’s her great-great-great- great-great grandfather Joseph Hochstetler. Those are the names that appear first on the official document. But since no pioneer could have done it without his wife (certainly not produced descendants), I feel it is only right to mention that Christian’s wife was Barbara Hooley and Joseph’s wife was Anna Blank.
    At the top of the ridge the gravel road splits, with the right fork turning off to the parking areas and picnic tables. As I continued on toward Settlers’ Cemetery, I could see among the parked cars the ones driven up by the Beeftrust. The hostess in me felt a sudden urge to stop and inquire politely about their lunch, but I repressed it. They were big