A Body at Bunco (18 page)

Florence settled down into a nearby, but not too nearby, chair. She leaned closer to Myrtle. “Did you hear about poor Alma? What is the world coming to? Will we all be murdered in our beds? What does Red say about all this?”

Miles perked up. “Poor Alma?” He blinked at Florence and Myrtle.

Florence gave him a sad smile and leaned in close to Myrtle. “He seems a bit confused. The poor dear.”

Considering the source, Myrtle had to force back a chuckle.

“Alma was murdered last night, Miles. You haven’t exactly been in the condition for me to talk with you about it,” said Myrtle.

Miles gave her a hurt look. “What happened to her?”

“Oh, stop it with the puppy dog eyes,” snapped Myrtle. She turned again to Florence. “It’s horrible, isn’t it? Red feels it’s tied into Luella’s death somehow.”

“How was she murdered?” asked Miles again in a querulous voice.

Florence said sadly, “Someone broke into her house and killed her as she slept. Smothered her with a pillow.”

Myrtle frowned. “Not exactly, Florence. Someone
did
break into her house, although that was a piece of cake considering all the open windows. But she wasn’t smothered. She was hit over the head with a cast iron skillet while she slept. Blunt force trauma.”

Myrtle could tell that Florence was one of those old ladies who got very defensive when shown to be inaccurate. Florence drew herself up. “I have it on very good authority that she was smothered!”

Myrtle took a deep breath. This was obviously an argument that she wasn’t going to win. She continued smoothly, “At any rate, the poor woman is dead now. And we need to figure out who did this before they kill again.”

Florence’s irritation was clearly forgotten. “Do you think they will? Kill again, I mean?”

“Naturally. They must feel as if they’ve gotten away with it twice. If they think someone is getting too close to the truth, they’ll be motivated to murder again,” said Myrtle. She looked closely at Florence. She did have pierced ears, but she was wearing both earrings. Still, Florence would be the type to lose an earring, if anyone would. And she certainly had a motive. She was very keen to keep driving her car.

As if on cue, Florence asked, “Myrtle, are you going to Luella’s funeral tomorrow morning? I know you don’t have a car, so I wondered if you might want a ride.”

Myrtle hesitated. She did need a ride. Was she desperate enough to climb into a car with Florence Ainsworth who was reputed to drive over sidewalks?

Florence seemed to think so. “I’ll pick you up thirty minutes before the service. So ten-thirty tomorrow morning.” She glanced over at Miles, who was slumped with his chin on his chest, sound asleep. “I guess I’d better be on my way. See you tomorrow, Myrtle.” She gathered her keys and left.

She was actually a bit spryer than Myrtle had thought. Certainly capable of bopping someone over the head. The breaking-in-through-a-window part might be a bit tricky, but she was motivated.

“Miles Bradford?” called a nurse.

Miles slept on.

“You’re going to have to physically retrieve him,” said Myrtle as she complacently picked up her outdated magazine again. There were good things about being old. No one expected much from you.

Forty-five minutes later, they left the doctor’s office after the nurses had carefully deposited Miles in Erma’s car, prescription for nausea in hand. He immediately fell asleep again as soon as he sat in the car. Myrtle sighed. Good deeds were a hassle. Now she’d have to see if Red could help her get Miles inside. She didn’t want to prop him upright as she’d done before.

Fortunately, Red was just dashing out of his house, sandwich in hand, when Myrtle pulled onto Magnolia Lane. She rolled a window down. “Red! Can you give me a hand for a minute?”

Red walked briskly over to meet her in Miles’s driveway. “It really is startling to see you in Erma’s car, Mama. Alarming, actually.”

“Well, you know. In cases of emergency, this kind of thing becomes necessary,” said Myrtle. “Now, can you move Miles inside?”

Red stooped over, gently awakened Miles, and then pulled him slowly out of the car. “Here we go,” he said in a cheerful voice. “Let’s head inside.”

Myrtle hurried ahead of them, finding the key and unlocking the door. “Put him in the recliner, Red, if you could. That’s where he’s been camping out.”

Miles mumbled a thank you and dropped down with relief into the recliner. “Okay, Miles,” said Myrtle. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’ve got to fill that prescription of yours.”

Miles had already fallen asleep. He was beginning to resemble the dormouse in
Alice in Wonderland
.

Red said, “That’ll be more than a few minutes, Mama. The drugstore was jam-packed with sick folk when I ran in there to get a Coke a little while ago. You’ll want to either bring a book or drop it off and return later.”

Myrtle made a face. “I don’t want to do either one. Miles needs this filled immediately. Maybe the crowds will have cleared by the time I get there.” She segued quickly: “You seemed as if you were in a hurry yourself when I spotted you outside. Any developments in the case?”

Red looked tired. And when he was tired, sometimes he was more forthcoming than usual.

He said, “You know, Mama, sometimes I don’t particularly like my job. Especially when I feel I’ve got to hassle people I know and respect. It pains me, it really does.”

“Who have you got to hassle? And what exactly does this hassling involve?”

Red rubbed the side of his face. “Everybody, really. I know all these women. Elaine plays Bunco with them every month, for heaven’s sake. I wouldn’t call any of these ladies hardened criminals. Estelle Rutledge? She only cares about tornadoes. Poppy? She’s just a harried soul trying to piece a living together. Florence Ainsworth is a bit batty. And Mimsy Kessler. I’ve always liked Mimsy.
Everyone
likes Mimsy. She’s just
nice
.”

Myrtle nodded, her mind whirling. “Are you questioning them all about evidence? Something to do with an earring?”

Red froze. “Okay, Miss Marple. How’d you know about that?”

“A little bird told me.”

Red appeared to be gritting his teeth. She hoped he didn’t grind them. That tended to lead to all sorts of dental troubles that he probably couldn’t afford. Especially now that he had plumbers at his house twenty-four seven. “Does this bird have a name? You should be glad you gave
me
this little nugget of information. The state police would be asking if you left the earring yourself.”

“As if I could climb through windows at my age. Pooh.”

“Pooh nothing. You could do anything you set your mind to, Mama.”

Myrtle sighed. “The little bird was poor Robert Wiggins. Alma’s son noticed the earring since his mother didn’t wear them.”

Red shook his head. “You’re a source of constant amazement. All right, since you’ve gotten this far, let’s hear it.”

Myrtle raised her eyebrows. “Hear what?”

“Who you think the owner of the earring is,” said Red.

“You want my opinion?” asked Myrtle incredulously. What was more—she didn’t really want to share it. Because there was this nagging worry in the back of her head. Something was off, she was sure of it. And some of it surrounded this earring.

Red just looked at her, expectantly.

“Okay. I wonder if maybe it might belong to Mimsy. Out of all your suspects, it seems like the kind of thing she’d wear. Just a guess. And she’d mentioned losing an earring at Bonkers, so I suppose she’s lost them before. But I wouldn’t read that much into it,” said Myrtle quickly. “And now I have to go get that prescription.”

“With a book,” stressed Red again.

“And I don’t have anything to read except this horrid dystopian novel that Miles gave me.” Those words always spurred a sense of panic in Myrtle. She
always
liked to have a stack of books ready for reading.

Red waved a hand around Miles’s book-lined living room. “Looks like you’re in the right place, Mama. There must be over two hundred books here. I think you can spot something you haven’t read.”

And he hurried out, leaving Myrtle to mull over the fact that Miles seemed to have an extraordinary attachment to the testosterone-driven literature of Hemingway and Steinbeck. She finally grabbed a dog-eared copy of
Little Men
and hurried out the door.

Chapter Fourteen

After Myrtle had finally gotten the prescription and roused Miles long enough for him to take it, she was ready to put her feet up for a while. Lugging Miles around town, even if she
had
been able to outsource some of the lugging, was still an exhausting process. And she felt as if he were on the right road at last. She’d checked in on him forty-five minutes after that anti-nausea pill and he’d seemed a lot more chipper. And awake.

Myrtle sat down on the sofa and fumbled with the remote to bring up that afternoon’s installment of
Tomorrow’s Promise.
But her head was still miles away. Wanda had said that Miles wouldn’t be sick for very long. She always seemed to know what she was talking about, as hard as that was to believe. There was something else she’d said that had bothered her … that Myrtle was on the wrong track. Myrtle wondered again about that earring.

Myrtle finally managed to put the murders out of her head. She spent the rest of the day watching her soap opera, doing the last couple of days’ worth of crossword puzzles, and eating a very simple supper of canned salmon and instant grits. When she turned in that night, she fully expected her usual nocturnal nonsense of nagging insomnia. Instead, though, she slept soundly through until five the next morning. And five was almost like the middle of the day for Myrtle.

She got up, ate a healthy breakfast, and started tracking down her funeral clothes. She’d planned in advance this time since her funeral attire had had various issues for the last couple of funerals she’d attended. She kept finding annoying stains or missing buttons or torn hems. It was quite extraordinary…almost as if some malevolent elf had been sabotaging her wardrobe. Considering the damage to her clothing, you’d think she’d been attending some sort of bacchanalian bachelorette party instead of funeral-going. As she looked in her closet, she also noticed she was very, very low on clean clothing. Myrtle wasn’t at all sure when she was going to find time to do some laundry, especially with Elaine popping over all the time to do her own.

And she’d had an epiphany this morning. It was right when she was staring at the severe navy-blue coat dress in her closet. She’d been standing there, frowning at the thing, making sure it didn’t have any defects, when it occurred to her that she had a new line of questioning for the remaining, living suspects.

Who has something against Mimsy Kessler?

Because, really, what if Wanda
were
right? What if Myrtle were on the wrong track, trying to find out who had something against Luella White? What if someone had something against
Mimsy
and was trying to set her up as Luella’s and Alma’s murderers? What if Myrtle weren’t merely on the wrong track, but at the entirely wrong station?

Which was when Myrtle switched from her epiphany and back to her funeral dress. It was quite wrinkled as if someone had taken it from the closet, stomped on it vigorously, and hung it back up.

Myrtle was, indeed, so efficient that morning that she was carefully pressed, wore immaculate stockings with no runs, chose sensible jewelry, and had her hair combed and makeup on at ten o’clock. She then commenced to wait for her ten-thirty ride.

The phone rang shortly after ten. She certainly hoped it wasn’t Florence with some hair-brained excuse.

But it was Miles. His voice sounded a lot more like Miles and a lot less than the petulant toddler he had sounded like during his less-lucid moments at the doctor’s office yesterday. “Did I dream it, or is there a funeral for Alma Wiggins today?”

“There certainly isn’t. She’s dead, but no one has the power to hustle her into the ground quite that fast. It’s a service for Luella White, our first-murdered. At eleven. I’m leaving for it presently,” said Myrtle. “And no, you can’t go.”

“I was only asking,” said Miles a bit coldly.

“You’re in no fit condition to be mourning around a graveside. You’ll steal all the thunder from the dead by passing out as if you were grief-stricken by Luella’s demise. And
then
people will talk.”

“I’m sure they’re
already
talking,” said Miles with a sigh. “Considering she was murdered at your party and all.” He paused. “At any rate, I wasn’t really calling about going to the funeral. I know better than to try to push myself. I’m certainly too weak from the minor dehydration and it
would
be rather alarming if I were to faint at the funeral. I was only calling to make sure that Alma
was
dead and that I hadn’t imagined it in some fit of feverish hallucination. Plus, I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done the last couple of days. I know it took time away from your investigation. And—you had to interact with Erma.”

“Well, I make sacrifices for friends, Miles. Even unspeakable sacrifices such as dealing with Erma Sherman. And you are my best friend.” She moved on briskly, since any hint of raw emotion made her very uncomfortable. “I’ll come by after the service to fill you in. Tape
Tomorrow’s Promise
and we’ll watch it together. I’ll let you know when because I’ve also got to fit in car shopping with Elaine … and I’d take you with me except that I don’t think you’re completely recovered yet. Now I’ve got to run since my ride should be here any minute.”

But her ride wasn’t there. And wasn’t. And when it was past the allotted time for Florence to arrive by a good bit, Myrtle called Florence.

“Hello?” asked the old woman cautiously.

“Florence? It’s Myrtle. Are you on your way?”

“On my way where?” asked Florence.

“To Luella’s funeral!”

“Is that today?” Florence’s voice was startled.

“It’s in twenty minutes!”

“Oh, mercy! Well, I’m glad you reminded me. I’ll see you there, Myrtle.” And Florence hung up.