A Body at Book Club (Myrtle Clover Mysteries) (14 page)

“Who’s there?” she yelled in a sharp voice.

A muffled voice said with a bit of exasperation, “It’s Miles.”

She put down the pepper spray and cane to open the door quickly. Sure enough, there was a dark, Miles-shaped figure on her porch. And he was holding a bundle. Myrtle peered down. “What’s that?”  She caught her breath. “Is that…?”

She reached out to turn on the porch light and saw a pitiful Pasha, bound in a blanket. “Myowww,” said the cat when it saw her.

Chapter Fourteen

“Miles!  You found her!”  Myrtle reached out to give Miles a hug, smashing a protesting Pasha in the process. “Here, come inside.” She took the bundle from Miles’s arms, crooning to it.

Miles brushed off some of the cat fur that had gotten on his clothes. “I’d be careful, Myrtle. She’s scared. And she’s fully armed with claws, you know.”

“Poor Pasha,” said Myrtle. She gently set down the bundle on the sofa and watched as Pasha fairly exploded from the covering, restlessly stalking around the room, stopping to sniff the furniture and Myrtle from time to time before finally settling down enough to sit on the floor and start grooming herself.

“However did you find her, Miles?” asked Myrtle, hurrying into the kitchen to pull out a can of tuna from her cabinet.

“I thought it through,” said Miles. “Oh, and she’s probably not going to want any tuna, although you can check and see.”

“What do you mean, you thought it through?” asked Myrtle. She opened the can and put some on a paper plate. Pasha looked interested, so she put the plate down on the floor and watched as Pasha did a fine impression of a hungry cat.

Miles gazed thoughtfully at Pasha. “Maybe she’s trying to make up for lost calories.” He took off his glasses, cleaning them with his button-down shirt and then carefully putting them back on his face. “I’d read up on lost cats and their usual hiding places. They favor going under porches, under grills that are covered by tarps, under cars, behind those roll-out garbage bins…places like that. Apparently, they can hole up for long periods of time. Sometimes thirst drives them out. So I put out some old plastic containers with water in some likely spots.”

Myrtle smiled down at Pasha as she quickly eliminated the tuna.

“When I saw which bowls were empty, I put a little smoked salmon at those stations later on,” said Miles in his best scientific voice. 

“Smoked salmon!  Miles, that’s horribly expensive. And you were likely feeding the town of Bradley’s population of possums, raccoons, and squirrels.”

“Possums and squirrels eat smoked salmon?”  Miles raised his eyebrows at this.

“If they’re hungry, why not? But go on, tell me more.”

“Well, the smoked salmon kept disappearing at one particular location. It was a few blocks away from here, heading away from downtown. So I decided to hide down there after I set out the salmon. I had a blanket with me, so I could throw it over the cat and roll her up in it to transport her carefully here.” He took off his glasses again and rubbed at what Myrtle suspected was a microscopic smudge.

“Or perhaps to prevent her from clawing you up?” asked Myrtle cannily.

“Perhaps. As I mentioned, she
is
fully armed.”

Myrtle said in a wondering voice, “And you sat out in the dark like a burglar, waiting for a cat to show up?”

Miles cleared his throat. “I did actually tell the surrounding neighbors what I was doing. And Red. The neighbors I spoke with had seen the flyers, as a matter of fact. After all, I didn’t think it would serve my purposes to be arrested for trespassing while I waited. Old Mrs. Adams even brought me a decaf coffee and a cookie. And a plastic yard chair to wait it out.” Miles smiled. “It wasn’t such a terrible experience. And now you’ve got Pasha.”

Pasha was now licking her paw to clean the last vestiges of tuna off her face and whiskers.

“I still can’t believe you shelled out that kind of money to find Pasha,” mumbled Myrtle. “That must have cost…I can’t even imagine. And to put food out it all over town like that.”

“About twenty-five dollars for a packet of it,” said Miles. He shrugged. “It was the only thing I could think of that might be a real treat for a cat—that she might really linger for.”

“You don’t even like Pasha, though. Pasha scratches you and hisses at you.” Pasha immediately negated Myrtle’s statements by trotting over to Miles and rubbing against his pants leg. He reached down and cautiously rubbed her back. Myrtle shook her head. “You don’t even like her, but you did this for Pasha.”

“I did this for
you
,” said Miles sternly. “Because you’re my friend. And you were worried.”

Myrtle felt an unusual prickling in her eyes. To hide it, she said brusquely, “Thank you, Miles.” And, surprising even herself, she reached over to give him a grateful hug.

Blinking furiously, Myrtle said, “Cookies? In celebration. And let’s forego the milk for wine.”

“You have wine here?” asked Miles in surprise.

“Hmm. Well, let’s see. I keep meaning to buy some at the store, you know. But when I get to the store I remember all the other things I need and forget the wine.” She peered in her fridge. “Oh. I guess I don’t have wine. But I do have sherry!” She frowned. “Although it seems a little bit more of an important occasion we’re celebrating than cheap sherry calls for.”

Miles smiled at her. “I’ve actually got a very nice bottle of chardonnay at home. I’ll go get it. And then I really do want to hear all the news on the case. I think I have some catching up to do.”

When Miles returned with the wine, Myrtle told him all about discovering Rose’s body and the talks she’d had with Claudia, Maxine and Lena. Miles listened attentively, asking a question every now and then while sipping his wine.

When she got to the part where the intruder had tried to break in, Miles sat straight up in his chair. “Did you tell Red this?” he asked her urgently. “Myrtle, that’s really scary.”

“What point would there be in telling Red?” she asked. “Red would simply shut me down. And I must be getting closer to the truth, since I have a murderer trying to get at me. No, Red would insist on my having a sleepover at his house and staying put there until the case is all wrapped up. But at the speed he and the state police move with these investigations, I’d be trapped over there for a month or more.” She made a face. “Or worse, he’d get me locked away at Greener Pastures. He had the gall to put me on their waiting list.”

“So you chased the intruder off with your pepper spray bottle,” Miles said. He shook his head. “"And I'm not at all surprised to hear about the waiting list. I figured something had happened to make you mad at Red. I did notice the gnome battalion in your front yard."

“Remember how Wanda was so adamant about giving the pepper spray to me? She knew it would be helpful. I believed her, too, which is why I had the thing right next to me at night. It was in my pocketbook, although I should have had it on my bedside table. Wanda knows her forecasting, I tell you what. I know you think it’s all hooey, but there you go.” Myrtle took a good-sized swallow of her Chardonnay.

“Forecasting? You make it sound as if Wanda is a meteorologist.” Miles smiled at the thought of Wanda in a newsroom pointing out high-pressure fronts with an emaciated arm and a nicotine-stained finger. “What else did Wanda carry on about that day? Some cryptic statement or other, wasn’t it?”

“The keys are in the van,” intoned Myrtle. “Who knows what that means? I guess I’ll find out one day.”

“So who are you thinking might be the most likely suspect now?” asked Miles. “And what do you think Rose’s scribblings on the crossword mean?”

Myrtle stood up and walked over to her desk. She said, “You know, you were so successful with your careful deductions and scientific approach to finding Pasha that maybe I need to adopt some of your methods.” She picked up a notebook and a pencil and sat back in her chair again.

“So now we’ve got Rose as a victim. I still say that the only reason someone would kill Rose is that she knew something that the killer didn’t want made public.” Myrtle tapped the pencil against her mouth. “Unless it’s the fact that she’s just generally annoying. But surely no one would murder her for that.” She put Rose and Naomi’s names at the top of the page and drew lines out from them.

She continued on, “Suspects would be Claudia Brown, Maxine Tristan, and Lena Fowler. I hate to take Rose off this list. She was a perfect suspect and vocal in her dislike for the victim.” Myrtle pursed her lips. “But I suppose the fact that she’s dead knocks her off the list.” She wrote in the suspects below the victims’ names.

Miles finished his wine and patted his mouth carefully with a napkin. “Couldn’t she still stay on the list as a suspect in Naomi’s death? It would only mean that someone else killed Rose for a separate reason.”

“Welllll…I don’t know. Because, as I said before, I can’t honestly think of a good reason for someone to want to kill Rose. She didn’t have a lot of money. She kept to herself for the most part. I think she knew something and approached the murderer about it—either to give them the chance to turn themselves in before she did, or to try to extort a bit of money from them. That’s what her housekeeper thought—that she was some sort of small-time blackmailer to keep her household accounts solvent.” Pasha jumped unexpectedly into Myrtle’s lap and Myrtle ran her hand over her thin back. The poor cat really had gotten dependent on her for food.

Miles frowned. “I must have missed that part. About the housekeeper.”

“I was talking to Puddin and she was making at least a little sense. She told me that her friend, Sheila, who’d cleaned for Rose, had thought Rose might have been trying to put pressure on someone. Sheila was indignant because she’s apparently morally unimpeachable.”

“Okay. So we’ve got Claudia, Lena, and Maxine. It sounds as if they all have motive, means, and opportunity. Or at least, they don’t have alibis. I’m thinking Lena,” said Miles thoughtfully.

“Why?”

“She seems very high-strung. She’s obviously still reeling from being betrayed by her husband and then his unexpected death. Lena needed a scapegoat and she picked Naomi. Case closed.” Miles looked very satisfied with his verdict.

“Makes sense. Except it wasn’t really a
betrayal
, you know. Lena’s husband wasn’t having an affair with Naomi Pelter. He just made a foolish decision to climb up onto her roof.”

“Either way. She’s definitely angry, even if it was all fairly innocent,” said Miles. “Tell me who you’re favoring now?”

Myrtle said, “I don’t know. Looking at this chart with all the suspects, I go back and forth. Maxine had plenty of reasons to murder Naomi. And I don’t think she’d really think twice about it. There’s a very cool, clinical side to her. Then there’s Claudia. She’s pitiful, she really is. But she had her one joy and talent in life usurped by Naomi. It seems like a good enough reason for murder to me. The only thing about Claudia is that she’s so…meek. It’s hard to picture her having the gumption to poison Naomi or whack Rose with a poker.”

“But one of those women must have done it. Unless we think it’s someone else?”

“No. No one else. These women were in garden club and attended the specific meeting and luncheon that talked about
Destroying Angel
mushrooms, and that would have offered an opportunity to tamper with Naomi’s food,” said Myrtle.

“And the cryptic crossword message? You think Rose saw some place card tampering at the garden club luncheon?” Miles raised his eyebrows. “Skullduggery at garden club?”

“That’s exactly what I think. I’m going to put a little question out to the side of my diagram—
who sat next to Naomi Pelter at garden club luncheon?
Because the question I was asking before,
did you see anyone tamper with the place cards
, didn’t seem to get any real answers.”

“So how do you think the killer did it? Wouldn’t it have been incredibly obvious if someone tampered with Naomi’s food in front of everyone?” asked Miles. Pasha gave a huge yawn from Myrtle’s lap and Miles gazed warily at her fangs.

“I need to find out more about that luncheon,” mused Myrtle. “Maybe there was a distraction of some kind and the killer was able to easily put the sliced mushrooms on Naomi’s plate without anyone watching. The salads are usually sitting on the tables when we come in for the luncheon, anyway. So there would have been time.”

“How would the murderer have even known there would be mushrooms served?” asked Miles. He frowned. “That seems incredibly lucky for the killer.”

Myrtle said, “No, we always know the menu in advance. Some people have food allergies and intolerances and other weird stuff and want to bring their own food. If they email it to us in advance, then vegetarian Mable knows she needs to bring her own entrée and gluten-free Clarissa knows that she’ll bring corn muffins for her bread because they’re serving biscuits. Everyone in that club has incredibly delicate stomachs for some reason. So the killer would easily have seen mushrooms on the menu.”

Myrtle stifled a yawn and Miles said, “I think that’s my cue. It sounds as if you haven’t slept the last couple of nights.”