Pretty is as Pretty Dies (A Myrtle Clover Mystery) (23 page)

Josh took a long swig of his coffee. "Off the record, Miss Myrtle," (which set the alarm bells off in Myrtle's head since reporters
were never really off-record), "who do you think is behind all this?
Bradley, North Carolina, doesn't exactly have a real crime problem.
Two murders in about as many weeks is almost unbelievable."

Myrtle nodded. "It hasn't exactly been a normal couple of
weeks around here, has it? I can't say I have any idea what has suddenly introduced this element into the town, josh."

"It almost seems," Josh said in a gossipy voice, "that it came in
with some newcomers to town." He looked meaningfully at her.

"If you mean did all this start with Parke's arrival to town, I'd
have to agree with you. She had a way of stirring things up" Myrtle
watched with interest as josh blushed. He must have had some
kind of crush on Parke. But then, she was a gorgeous and accomplished woman. Maybe it was to be expected.

"And hasn't Cecil Stockard been an instigator, too?" Josh asked
innocently. He was obviously fishing for the hot quote. Myrtle
wasn't forgetting that he had his reporter hat on. He wasn't just
sitting in her kitchen having a neighborly cup of coffee with her,
she reminded herself.

Myrtle didn't answer and josh tried again. "I mean, he seems to
end up on the wrong side of the law sometimes, doesn't he? There
were always allegations of drug use, right? And some talk of online
gambling?"

Figuring he'd find out soon enough anyway, Myrtle said,
"That's all true, Josh. But Cecil Stockard was in the Bradley jail
during the murder yesterday." Josh sat back in the wooden chair
with surprise and Myrtle continued, "Yes. For DUI. So he's out of
the picture for Kitty's murder anyway. I know you're trying to do
some reporting, Josh, but you ought to be more careful where
you're prying. It could be very dangerous."

Josh looked disappointed. "I guess I could put a statement
about his arrest in the crime report, anyway." He finished his coffee and left to write up his story. His phone rang on the way out
Myrtle's door and she followed him outside, on the pretense of
watering her potted geraniums.

"And what was your reaction when you heard about Kitty
Kirk's death?" Josh was asking. He listened and made some notes
on a pad as he walked slowly around the gnomes in the front yard.
Myrtle rolled her eyes. He was obviously going for the gut responses and ignoring the factual side of the story. "And were you
surprised to hear she'd been murdered, Ms. Sherman?" Great. And
obviously playing on Erma's infatuation with him and her general
sense of melodrama to help him with his story.

Myrtle watched Josh get in his car and drive off. She just couldn't
see Josh as a possible suspect. She'd originally included him on her
list because he'd sounded as apprehensive about Parke's conquering
column as she'd been. Now she just wondered if he was commiserating with her out of kindness. Sloan surely wouldn't have cut his
Wonder Boy's articles down to make room for Parke's silly piecehe was too trophy-obsessed to do that. And Josh appeared to have
had a crush on Parke, too. He turned bright red whenever her name
was mentioned.

At least she hadn't had to go out of her way to find josh to talk to
him. Now she just had to go down the list and talk to the rest of her
suspects. She started thinking about Tippy Chambers. Too bad book
club wouldn't meet until next month. Who'd have guessed she'd be so
eagerly waiting for book club? Myrtle shook her head in amazement.

She looked over at her calendar. There was a United Methodist
Women meeting scheduled for eleven o'clock at the church hall. She
beamed. Thank god, Red had signed her up for all that garbage. It
gave her the perfect chance to talk to Tippy Chambers. She got
dressed.

The church was a fairly easy walk from her house. Luckily it
was a nice day, even if it was already hot as the hinges. The seersucker suit she was wearing stuck to her a little as she made her
way to the church, thumping with her cane as she went.

She was rewarded for her vigilance by the sight of Benton Chambers talking in the church parking lot with Tippy. As Myrtle walked
up to them, Tippy started walking into the church. Benton saw Myrtle and started moving toward his car. Was he running away from
her? Pleased as Myrtle was by the idea, she decided he must actually
be headed back to work. She called out to him: "Yoo-hoo! Benton?"

He stiffened a bit, then turned around, beaming a gracious,
politician's smile. "Why, Miss Myrtle! How are you doing today,
ma'am? Isn't it a nice day?"

"Well, I guess so. A little on the hot side maybe. I was wondering if you'd heard the news? About Kitty Kirk?"

He must have heard something, because an odd expression
crept over his face and he plunged his hand into his suit pocket.
"Sorry, Miss Myrtle. I've got a phone call."
"

I didn't hear it ring," she said suspiciously.

"Had it on `vibrate,"' he said, hitting a button on the phone and
eagerly saying, "Hello?" as he walked to his BMW. BM-dubyer,
thought Myrtle, remembering Crazy Dan.

Myrtle rooted around in her large pocketbook for her own
phone. She wanted to tell Elaine about Benton's reaction and see if
she thought it seemed suspicious, too.

She pulled out her phone, then put it back as soon as she'd found
it. What was the use of calling Elaine? She knew exactly what would
happen. Myrtle would ask Elaine if she thought Benton Chambers
was being evasive by leaping all over his cell phone. In the background, Jack would be howling over a dropped Fruit Loop, Red
would be fussing over a broken laptop computer, Jean-Marc would
be muttering in sullen French. Elaine would pretend to listen, then
she'd answer, "Yes, I do like chamber music. But not in church," or
some such nonsense before she'd quickly get off the phone. No, she
was going to have to depend on herself more for this case. Elaine
had gone from burned-out mommy to amateur zookeeper.

Myrtle puzzled over her transformation from sought-after friend
of years past to the lonelier-self-reliant, she corrected-person she
was now. Then she smiled. She'd call Miles up a little later and bounce
the idea off him. With that settled in her mind, she made her way
into the church hall where most of the United Methodist Women
were already waiting for the meeting to begin. Myrtle saw that Tippy
Chambers, wearing a bright red suit, had a free seat next to her. Myrtle quickly sat down, turning immediately to talk to Tippy. The meeting started right away, though, stymieing her efforts.

Myrtle's thoughts wandered as the meeting's chairwoman had
the secretary read the minutes from the last meeting. Meetings were
the bane of her existence and she avoided them whenever possible. Which was a major reason why she hadn't signed up for United
Methodist Women herself. The secretary seemed to drone on and
on. The air conditioner in the church hall was loud, too, contributing to the white noise effect. Myrtle later supposed that she had
drifted off to sleep in her chair. There was really no other explanation how she ended up with her head snuggled onto Tippy Chambers' shoulder.

She sat up and looked apologetically at Tippy, who gave her a
polite, if slightly icy, smile. Myrtle guessed that Tippy didn't have
too many people in her life who dared to wrinkle her suits or who
fell asleep on them. Myrtle willed herself to stay awake, pinching
her arm surreptitiously. The meeting hadn't gotten anymore exciting while she'd been asleep and several members were now arguing monotonously over some church business. As far as Myrtle
could tell, they were covering the same material over and over
again without adding any new suggestions or ideas.

She glanced over at Tippy to see if she were as bored with the
meeting as Myrtle was. The problem with Tippy, she decided, was
that she was just so darn professional in her volunteering. So gung-
ho, so interested. It just didn't seem right, Myrtle thought maliciously,
that Tippy should be as engrossed by this ridiculous meeting. And
her involvement in the proceedings would likely extend after the
meeting, with Tippy going up to discuss further some absurdity
raised during the assembly. No, this was the perfect time to talk to
Tippy.

Myrtle adopted her most old lady-esque demeanor and tugged
at Tippy's suit sleeve. Tippy gave her a long-suffering look, but
having been raised to always respect her elders, obediently leaned
over to listen to Myrtle's stage whispers.

"Did you hear about Kitty Kirk?" Myrtle asked.

Tippy looked at her pityingly. "Yes, we were talking about it
while you were asleep. We're trying to decide on an appropriate
memorial at the church since Kitty was so involved here."

Myrtle was horrified that she'd missed the only interesting part
of the meeting. "Did they discuss what happened to her?"

"No, we just said a prayer for her family, organized a sign-up to
bring food over to them, and discussed the possible memorials."
Tippy pointedly trained her eyes back to the front of the church
hall.

"It was murder, you know," said Myrtle in what she fondly considered an undertone.

A hard glint appeared in Tippy's green eyes as she cut them
across to look at Myrtle. "I heard that. Poor Kitty."

"It's so terrible to think," said Myrtle in her best frail-old-lady
manner, "that when I was spending my day preparing for a small
dinner party, poor Kitty was suffering." She paused. "What were
you doing when poor Kitty was being murdered?"

Tippy's breath hissed out. "Well, I have no idea, Miss Myrtle. I really don't know anything about the murder. I had many different
meetings to attend yesterday, so was running around town all day
getting ready for garden club, Altar Guild, and the historical society."

"And Benton was too?" asked Myrtle. She tried to appear
merely conversational, but Tippy was definitely looking suspicious.
"Yes, Benton was, too. The campaign is in full swing, you know"

Suddenly, Red's voice blared out, "ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL
ME?" Myrtle whirled around but didn't see him anywhere. Everyone at the meeting turned to stare as the belligerent question was
repeated. Myrtle realized that Red's voice seemed to be coming from her voluminous pocketbook. Tippy shot her a withering "bequiet!" look. Myrtle snatched up her handbag and cane and hurried to the door. Damn that Red. When he had programmed her
new cell phone last night, he'd recorded a voicetone that would
"ring" whenever someone called her. She fumbled with the phone,
trying unsuccessfully to change it back to a regular ringtone or
even to turn the ring volume down. He'd really fixed her wagon
this time. She gave up messing with the phone settings and stuck
the phone inside a wad of tissues, deep down in her pocketbook.

"Mama needs another project," growled Red as he stomped through
the police station door. Perkins held a file, and raised a questioning
eyebrow.

"I just drove past the church and saw her harassing Benton
Chambers, trying to muscle information out of him. She's really
going to get herself killed"

"So she needs another red herring? I guess she didn't figure out
that the last tip was a fake."

"If she has, I haven't heard anything about it," answered Red.
"All I've gotten is an earful over all those blasted bushes"

Perkins picked up his coffee cup and took a thoughtful sip.
"How about computers? Could we trick her into doing some computer research and tie her up that way for a while?"

Red hooted. "Perfect! All she really knows how to use is the word
processing stuff and e-mail anyway. To her, the Internet is the Great
Satan. I've got it-let me pretend to be talking on my phone to you.
I have to run by her house anyway and take her to the store. Just give me twenty to twenty-five minutes and then call me. I'll mention
something about loading the suspects into the search engine. It'll
take a whole day for her to figure that out, then another one to actually do it. And she can do all her investigating in the safety of her
own home, without terrorizing the community."

Myrtle had already made an interesting discovery in the newspaper that morning. Josh's article on Kitty's murder was as wellwritten as usual-what you'd expect from a person who'd been on
the staff of the New York Times. But this time she noticed something different. The story not only made her feel like she was part
of it, but it also made it sound as if he had been there when he'd
interviewed Erma Sherman. Myrtle knew it had been a phone interview, but all the facial descriptions had been included-little
things like, "She tugged nervously at her blouse collar." Well. Josh
probably hadn't been worried that Erma would take him up on his
literary license, since she had such a crush on him. She was likely
so flattered by the attention that she didn't even notice he'd added
some details he couldn't possibly have known about. But it made
her wonder. Had Josh embellished a story before and Parke's
watchful eye had caught it? She didn't have much time to dwell on
this interesting idea since, twenty minutes later, Red was driving
her to the grocery store and grinning over her angry lecture about
the need to respect mothers and not tinker with their cell phones
when his own phone rang on cue. "What's that? Need me to check
something online? Okay. Sounds like a lead ... I'll check them out.
Yep, I'll load 'em into the search engine." Myrtle busily scrabbled
around in her cavernous pocketbook, as if searching for an elusive
coupon or shopping list, while keeping her ears open. It irritated her that Red thought she was so clueless about computers that he
could safely discuss them in front of her.