“Icky? Pus is icky, Chris, and so are boiled turnips, and half-naked parboiled people at the beach, but not babies.”

“Are you saying they’re all cute?”

“Indeed I am!”

“Even that Schultzendorfer kid who looks exactly like a possum?”

“Okay, so maybe the Good Lord made one exception.”

“Aha! So you see it too-the marsupial thing he has going on?”

“I’m not blind, Chris.”

He shrugged, happy to be validated. “Who knows, maybe the kid will grow out of it.”

“Or not. Melvin Stoltzfus was born looking like a praying mantis and he never grew out of-oh, my Land O’ Goshen! I’d completely forgotten; Melvin is Little Jacob’s uncle.” I threw myself into young Chief Ackerman’s strong, but entirely safe, arms and began to sob.

“There, there,” he said as he patted my back. “From what I’ve heard about the man, I don’t think he’d hurt the boy-not unless he felt threatened by him directly. I mean, isn’t Melvin’s strong suit murdering adults?”

“It’s not that, you idiot-oops, did I say that? If so, a thousand pardons. My point is that an innocent little boy may have the genetic predisposition to grow up looking like an insect with eyes that swivel independently of each other.”

“Is that all you’re concerned about? Then fear not, oh inbred one. You obviously inherited the good-looking genes in your family, and as for your husband-woof; you can’t get any handsomer than that.”

I pulled free from my shameless embrace. “Uh, down, boy; the Babester is already spoken for.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry.”

“Look, dear, did you drag me away from my dear Little Jacob, not to mention the food, just to talk about babies?”

“No, ma’am.”

Suddenly the straw that littered the barn floor became intensely interesting. “Miss Yoder, you know those twenty-six people who got food poisoning the day Minerva J. Jay died?”

“I am not responsible, Chris. Just because I am the most senior deaconess, and in charge of a new search committee for a new pastor, does not make me culpable for what happens at the Brotherhood breakfast. I was helping out only because they needed an extra pair of hands; I most certainly did not have an ax to grind.”

That pipsqueak from California had the audacity to laugh. “Miss Yoder, you’re a hoot when you get all wound up. Anybody ever tell you that?”

“Who are you kidding?” I said, and wagged my finger in his face, presidential style. “I’m a hoot and a holler, but I’ll have you know that my sex life is none of your business.”

Poor Chris didn’t know what else to do but laugh. Fortunately it is something he does very well.

“No, no, Miss Yoder. What I mean is that-well, never mind that just now. What I brought you in here to tell you is that nobody got sick that day except for the deceased.”

I sighed impatiently. “Of course they did. That’s why the ambulances were all tied up and I had to wait so long to get to the hospital. Why am I telling you this? You were there, for crying out loud!”

“Yes, but, Miss Yoder, I got their lab reports today along with Miss Jay’s autopsy. The reports show that none of those twenty-six people had food poisoning.”

“Why, that’s impossible! They all had to have their stomachs pumped, and some of them were in the hospital for days afterward. Irene Sprunger is still in the hospital, too weak to make it to the toilet on her own.”

“Miss Yoder, it was mass hysteria. There was nothing wrong with any of them that could be attributed to your pancake breakfast.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“As sure as I am that Little Jacob is one cute baby boy. Apparently this kind of thing is not all that uncommon. As for Miss Sprunger, as long as she sincerely believes she was poisoned, there is a good chance that her body will continue to respond that way.”

“And Minerva J. Jay?”

“There were enough drugs in her bloodstream to kill an elephant.”

“Oh, really?” Shame, shame, shame on me for feeling even a second’s worth of schadenfreude, although, in my defense, it was only because hearing this news vindicated my intense dislike of the abrasive and gluttonous Minerva. (Even more shame, I think, should go to the Germans, who felt enough schadenfreude to have deemed it necessary to invent such a word.)

“Yes, but the strange part is that they were a weird cocktail of drugs, not something you’d normally find in the system of someone who was trying to get, or maintain, a buzz.”

“A buzz?”

“I forgot. You’re not a drinker and you’ve probably never even taken-”

“I get it,” I said. The sad truth is that I’d been buzzed by an entire hive of bees on three separate occasions, but all of them inadvertent, to be sure. How was I to know what a mimosa was? Or a hot toddy? Not to mention hard cider. In my opinion, if the Good Lord intends for us to stay away from alcohol, He shouldn’t allow it to be served under such beguiling names. Then again, mine has always been the minority opinion.

“Yes, well, the drugs included prescription sleeping pills, tranquilizers, and antidepressants. Given that Miss Jay was herself on antidepressants and tranquilizers, the addition of this combination proved to be lethal. Despite her size, she didn’t stand a chance.”

“Are you officially declaring this a murder case?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I see.” I began counting silently, knowing that I wouldn’t get past four-oops, I only made it to three.

“I need your help, Miss Yoder.”

“With what?”

“Don’t play coy, please. This woman’s killer has had eight days to get a head start and cover his tracks.”

“What makes you think it’s a man?”

Then young Chris did the nearly unforgivable; he grabbed my biceps and squeezed it tightly. The message he sent was loud and clear: he was the boss, and all I had to do was to listen to him. Needless to say, I yanked my arm away to let him know that no one was the boss of me. Especially not a man half my age.

“Miss Yoder, the lab tests show that the drugs had been cooked into the pancakes, thereby altering their chemical states somewhat. Weren’t all the cooks that morning men?”

I took a tissue out of the pocket of my blue broadcloth dress and pretended to blow my nose. I honked as loud as a Canada goose and moved that wad of paper hither, thither, and yon, just so young Chris wouldn’t see the smirk that was impossible for me to corral and squash into submission.

“Actually, dear,” I mumbled, “Frankie Schwartzentruber is a woman.”

“Who?”

“Frankie only comes up to my chest on account of she’s all hunched over. She has her hair pulled back tightly in a bun, and she wears a lot of beige and brown, so she’s easy to miss.”

“Oh, you mean that elderly Asian woman who belongs to your church? I didn’t see her on pancake day.”

“She’s not Asian, dear. Frankie’s had five plastic surgeries more than Joan Rivers ever dreamed of. Her last facelift was performed in Bangkok by a surgeon who has self-esteem issues and uses her own face as a template. But the procedures are very inexpensive, I hear.”

Young Chris grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind. Anyway, Miss Yoder, as usual, because these are your people and you know their ways, I’d like to count on your help.”

I cocked an ear to the other side of the cavernous barn. To the best of my knowledge, my little precious was not even mewling. Then again, he might have been bawling his head off and I wouldn’t have heard him, thanks to the masticating jaws of hundreds of apparently starving people chowing down on the traditional Jewish delicacies provided by Shmoe’s Deli out of Pittsburgh. (You would have thought we’d invited locusts, not people, to the bris.)

“Look,” I said, “in the past I’ve been more than happy to use my not inconsiderable brainpower-and I say that with all humility-as well as my above-average people skills-ditto on the humble thing-to solve most, if not all, of Hernia’s baffling crimes. But, as my sister is wont to say, that was then, and this is now. Then I had just myself to consider-well, and sometimes a hunky man-but now I have a little man to consider, one that is totally dependent on me. Forgive me, therefore, if I don’t feel like putting my life in jeopardy once again.”