Death at a Drop-In (17 page)

Myrtle gave her a guileless look.  “A woman?”

“You know.  That Cosette Whitlow.  Felix kept fancying himself in love with her.” Sybil gave a barking laugh meant to spotlight the ridiculousness of that belief.

“I thought I might have spotted the two of you at Cosette’s drop-in,” said Myrtle in a mild tone.  “Everyone looked unhappy.  Were you arguing?”

Sybil rubbed her eyes. “What a night. Felix kept saying he wanted to go to Cosette’s party.  He was being real ornery about it.  And I knew that Cosette was a huge flirt who seemed to think she was a lot prettier than she really was. I told Felix I didn’t want to go over there and have Cosette flirt the whole time and he said that he was going to go whether I wanted to or not.”

“But it seemed to me,” said Myrtle carefully, “that Felix was angry with Cosette.  It seemed like he was warning her in some way.”

Sybil shook a finger at her.  “Exactly.  Bingo.  I think Cosette was acting too flirty with Felix in public and he was telling her to back off.  But I didn’t hear that part because I walked into the kitchen too late—remember when I left you and Miles to go into the kitchen?”  She gave a harsh laugh.  “If he’d only listened to me. I could have told him that Cosette was no good for him.”

So there hadn’t been any political argument.  Felix had been breaking up with Cosette…as he was trying rather unsuccessfully to do with Sybil. Just as she’d suspected.

“So you think Cosette was being too edgy with their relationship?” asked Myrtle.

“I bet it’s because she wouldn’t leave him alone and he didn’t want a scandal,” said Sybil.  She shrugged.  “A professional guy like him doesn’t want to be seen around with a married woman.  He’s supposed to be building up trust with clients. Besides,” she said, holding out her hands, “he and I are a couple.  So it made sense that he would try to make her see that.”

“Wasn’t that such a horrible night?” asked Myrtle in her best gossipy voice, trying to set the stage for her next questions.  “I guess you must have heard that I discovered Cosette in the back yard.”

Sybil raised her eyebrows.  “No, I sure didn’t.  I figured that Felix had looked for her and found her.” She leaned forward and gave Myrtle a sympathetic squeeze on the hand. “That must have been horrible for you.”

“It was. And it’s dreadful that the murderer is still at large.  Poor Red, working so hard to try to find out who did it. 
You
didn’t happen to see or hear anything when you were leaving the party with Felix, did you?”

Sybil studied her ceiling as she thought.  “Let’s see. Nope.”  She looked back at Myrtle with a regretful smile. “I was in such a tizzy with Felix being mad that I don’t even remember our drive back home.  I told Red the same thing.  I was as good as useless that night.”

“You didn’t happen to see,” said Myrtle slowly, “a man carrying garbage
toward
the house instead of away from it?”

Sybil looked startled. “As a matter of fact, I saw a man carrying trash across the street, apparently on his way to the Whitlow house.  Weird.  I’d forgotten about it, too.”

Maybe it jogged her memory in other ways, too.

“So you saw a man with trash.  Did you notice anything else? You must have felt awkward, leaving the drop-in with Felix looking so angry.  Did you look around you to see who else was at their cars, who might be watching as y’all made a scene?” asked Myrtle.

Now Sybil appeared to be thinking about it in earnest.  “Erma Sherman was outside—from book club, you know.”

“I know,” said Myrtle with a sigh.  “She’s my next-door neighbor.”

“Poor you,” said Sybil.  “Anyway, I winced when I saw her because I knew that she loves to gossip; and there was Felix, practically pulling me away from the party and looking mad enough to pop.”  She thought some more.  “There were some people I didn’t know who were leaving or coming.  I didn’t worry about them, since I didn’t know them and Felix apparently didn’t, either.”  She paused.  “And I saw Joan—Cosette and Lucas’s daughter.”

Myrtle said, “Joan?  You saw her leaving?”  But Joan should already have left by that point.

“No, I saw her pulling in.  She was looking for a spot to park and ended up parking way down the street instead of trying to parallel park closer. I remember thinking that she was super-late to the drop-in, even though drop-ins are more laid back, and wondered where her son was…because when she got out of the car, she didn’t have him with her.  She started walking around the side of the house, which was weird.”

Myrtle waited for a few moments to see if Sybil was able to come up with anything else, but she shook her head.  “That’s it, I think.”

Myrtle said, “Isn’t it amazing how things come back to us?  I don’t suppose you remember anything about the day of that other murder—Tobin Tinker’s.”

Sybil shook her head once again.  “No, I’m sure I won’t be able to help you there.  I have no idea who Tobin is.  I guess in a lot of ways I’m still a newcomer to Bradley since I don’t know everyone in town, like most folks do.”

“Tobin is actually the man you saw carrying the trash toward the party,” said Myrtle quietly.

Sybil gasped.  “Oh no.  Really? That’s such a coincidence.”

“Is it?  I believe the police think the two murders are connected.  How could they not be?” asked Myrtle.  “Did you happen to notice anything at Cosette’s funeral that might give us some clues what happened to Tobin?”

Sybil shook her head and looked away.  “I didn’t go to Cosette’s funeral, Miss Myrtle.  Funerals are for paying respects.  If you don’t have any respect, you don’t go.”

Myrtle stared intently at Sybil until she looked at her.  “I saw you there, though.  I saw you by the road.  Maybe you didn’t listen to the service or stand with the mourners, but you were watching from a distance.  Your car really stands out, you know. Did you see anything while you were there?”

Sybil seemed to be about to protest again that she hadn’t been there, and then she shrugged.  She rattled the ice in her glass.  “I wasn’t there because there was a funeral.  I was trying to figure out what was going on near the woods. I could tell people were grouped funny for a funeral—for one thing, they weren’t standing near the grave or around Lucas, like you’d expect.  For another, they all looked shocked.  Funerals can be sad, but they’re usually not shocking to go to.”

Myrtle nodded.  “And you found out later that there was a body in the woods.  When you heard that, did you think of anything you saw when you were down by the road?”

“I didn’t see a thing,” said Sybil.  “Not a thing.  Now tell me more about where you got your gnomes.  Have you ever ordered any online?”

Chapter Fifteen

As Myrtle was walking back home, she decided she wanted her container back from Lucas.  She hadn’t spoken to him as much as she’d talked with the other suspects.  And, pitiful though he was, he certainly
was
a suspect.  He was the husband and he was getting, according to his daughter, a tidy windfall from the life insurance company.  Hazel and Joan had both mentioned the fact that he’d been broke before Cosette died.  He was decidedly grief-stricken, but maybe he was only grief-stricken over the state of his soul.

The books, neither of which she had the smallest intention of introducing to the book club—especially since it wasn’t actually her turn for six months—were starting to weigh heavily on her as she walked.  Myrtle decided that she’d go by the library to return them before walking to Lucas’s house. 

The library was a two-story brick building with a few too many steps for Myrtle’s liking.  She stood at the bottom of the flight of stone stairs and sighed.  This one time, she’d use the ramp on the side of the stairs. She’d used the stairs earlier, after all.  No one would ever know.

She mentally cursed the humidity of Southern summers for the millionth time as she walked up the steep ramp.  The glassed-in foyer was blessedly air-conditioned and she hovered in there a few minutes after sticking the two books in the return slot. After she felt more or less refreshed, she turned to go back out and down the ramp again.

It had been very quiet on the street.  It must be considered too hot for folks to walk around town, which Myrtle hadn’t gotten the memo on.  Going down the handicapped ramp was more challenging than going up, although surely that shouldn’t be the case, since it required less exertion.

She’d just put one foot down on the ramp in front of her when she felt a sudden prickling at the back of her neck and a sense of movement behind her.  A hand briefly and firmly pressed to the base of her back and shoved hard.  Myrtle started falling as she heard the sound of someone running away.

It was her cane—that hated cane— that saved her in the end.  Her feet had swung out in front of her and her hand had flown off the rail from the force of her fall.  But somehow she’d automatically tightened her grip on her cane with that left hand and jammed down the stick as if she were skiing.  It helped her to sit down, albeit very hard, on the concrete ramp.  That’s where she sat, trembling and motionless, until a car drove up to park in front of the library.

When she looked up, she was appalled to see that it was a police car and that Red was hurrying out.  Shoot.  What was he going to think?

Red quickly indicated what he was thinking.  “You fell!  Mama, are you okay?”

Myrtle wasn’t sure if she was okay, but she didn’t think anything had broken.  And she certainly wasn’t going to own this accident as a fall.  She gingerly started moving her arms and legs.  “I’m okay.  But I didn’t fall, I was pushed.”

Red’s face went from relief that she wasn’t hurt to skepticism. “Right.  You never fall down, do you?”

“Red, I was
shoved
.  I returned a couple of books and I was cautiously making my way down the ramp, and someone came up and pushed me! Look around the library and see if there are any suspects lurking around in there.”

Red said, “Suspects?  Mama, I’m more interested in getting you off the staircase and over to a doctor to make sure you’re all right.”

Myrtle bristled.  “I’m fine. I sure don’t need a doctor’s co-pay on top of everything else.  This spill will only mean a few bruises.  And if you won’t scour the library for who might be responsible, then I guess I’ll have to do it.”  She struggled to get to her feet, feeling the beginnings of bruising and soreness. Red supported her by her elbows and helped bring her up.

“Let me help you into the library and out of the heat, Mama.  I think the heat might be addling your mind a bit—you’re making less sense than usual.”  He gently took her arm and led her into the library.  Myrtle found that she was leaning more on both her cane and Red’s arm than she wanted to.  She could also tell that she was going to be very, very sore.

Red led her over to the first available armchair and helped her into it.  She ended up dropping down as her legs plumb gave way. Red stared solicitously at her and Myrtle frowned back at him.  “Don’t worry about me. Go check out the patrons, for heaven’s sake.”  She looked fretfully around her, but didn’t see anyone but Gladys, the librarian, who was hurrying toward them with furrowed brows and an anxious look in her eyes.  She’d been the Bradley librarian since Myrtle had gotten her first library card.  Myrtle knew how old that must make Gladys.  It irritated Myrtle that Gladys didn’t appear that old.  And that
she
wasn’t the one who was wondering how she was going to make it back out of this chair.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” muttered Myrtle. 

Gladys’s clucking concern was now drawing a small crowd from the depths of the modestly sized library.  There was a sleepy old man from the periodicals, wide-eyed children from Juvenile, and a teenager scowling at them from the Young Adult section.

“Did you take a tumble?” Gladys asked, wringing her frail hands.

“She sure did,” Red answered grimly.

“I was pushed,” repeated Myrtle in a stubborn voice. “Gladys, have you seen Sybil in here?  Or maybe Felix or Lucas?”

“Who?”  Gladys blinked at her and Myrtle remembered that Gladys took a lot more stock in knowing book titles than remembering names.  The only reason she knew Myrtle’s was because she’d known her for over eighty years.

“Never mind,” said Myrtle with a sigh.  “What about Joan.  You remember Joan, don’t you?”

“Oh, I saw her in here.”

“Did you?” Myrtle asked with quickening interest.

“Yes.  A while ago.  With little Noah, checking out some picture books.”  Gladys wrinkled her too-smooth-for-being elderly brow.  “And you were in here, too.  Don’t tell me you already finished reading those two books.”

“I won’t then,” said Myrtle.  She turned to Red.  “I don’t know who did it, but somebody followed me here, looking for a chance to do me harm.  When I walked into the library, they must have followed me, hiding behind the columns until I came out again, and then pushed me.  I could have died, you know.”

“No argument there,” said Red.  “But the rest of what you’re saying sounds completely paranoid.  Next, you might be claiming you’re seeing spaceships or Big Foot, or the Loch Ness monster or something.”

Myrtle bit her tongue, hard, to keep from firing back at him.  He was going to make her lose her religion right here at the Bradley Library and Gladys would spread it all over town. She was going to spread the fact that she fell, too.  It was all thoroughly aggravating. Myrtle shot him an ugly look.

She glanced impatiently at the small crowd still gaping at her.  “All right, move along.  As you were.  Nothing to see here.”  They returned to their respective areas and Myrtle said, “I’m ready to go home now.”

“I’ll drive you back,” said Red.

Myrtle felt contrary.  “I got myself here and I can get myself back.  You were here running an errand or as part of your patrol, weren’t you?”

Red pretended that he hadn’t even heard her, but the red flush creeping up his neck told Myrtle otherwise.  “Let’s head to the police cruiser,” he said in a clipped voice. Myrtle wondered for a moment if he were planning on handcuffing her as well. 

She stiffly allowed him to hold her arm as they slowly made their way to the police car.