Death at a Drop-In (4 page)

“Annoying,” said Miles.

Annoying—and missing.  They looked for her in the crowded living room, the dining room, and even knocked on the hall bathroom to make sure she wasn’t in there.  Everyone had seen her, but no one had seen her recently.

Lucas’s face appeared strained.  They’d retreated back to the kitchen to talk, since they could barely hear each other in the other rooms.  “Where could she have gone?  And during a drop-in? That’s not like her.  She’s always a good hostess.”

Myrtle said, “The only place we haven’t checked is outside.  She’s clearly not inside.”

“Why on earth would she go outside? I mean—she’s an outdoor person, but why now?” He gave a rough laugh.  “I don’t go outside at all myself anymore—gardening never caught on for me.”

“Who knows?” asked Myrtle impatiently.  “But we should check.  And we should make sure her car is here, too.”

“I can’t imagine Cosette driving away from a
party
,” said Lucas.

“Maybe she suddenly realized y’all were out of ice or something,” said Miles.  “It happens.”

They walked out the kitchen door onto the back porch and into the attached garage.  Cosette’s sedan was still there.  “I didn’t think she would leave,” said Lucas.  “But where is she?”

“Can you turn on any lights that will shine in the backyard?” asked Myrtle.  “It’s the only place we haven’t checked.”  She gripped her cane.  She
was
fairly sturdy on her feet, really.  Just not on soil. 

Lucas obediently stepped into the kitchen and flipped some switches, and lights came on at the back corners of the ranch house and outside the back porch.  Myrtle peered into the darkness.  There was a dark lump on the ground near the line of trees leading down to the lake. 

Myrtle gripped her cane and opened the screen door, moving carefully into the yard.  “Do y’all see something there? On the ground…near the woods?”  

Lucas froze in place as Myrtle and Miles hurried forward. 

It was Cosette, sprawled face-first on the damp ground.  A bloody croquet mallet lay next to her.

Chapter Four

Lucas Whitlow seemed intent on leaping across the yard and completely mucking up the crime scene.

Fortunately, Miles was able to hold his arm and stop him.  “Lucas, there’s nothing you can do now.  I’m so sorry.  Let’s go inside and call the police right away.  We need to find out who did this, and treading into the crime scene won’t help.”

The poor man was completely devastated, trembling all over.  “Are you sure?  There’s no doubt…. I didn’t even know we owned a croquet set.  I never go out into the yard, you see.  There’s nothing we can do…?”  He looked as if he might become ill.

“I’m afraid not,” said Myrtle shaking her head and gently motioning Lucas back toward the screened porch. “Why don’t you head inside with Miles while I call Red?”

Miles carefully led Lucas back into the house while Myrtle drew closer to the body on the ground.  She wouldn’t disturb the crime scene, but she’d take a couple of pictures of it for future reference.  Red and the state police could be stingy with their information. 

Myrtle studied the area.  She didn’t see any footprints or any obvious clues.  It certainly didn’t appear that Cosette had put up any kind of a fight against her murderer—there were no cuts or injuries on Cosette besides the fatal blow with the mallet.  There was no torn clothing.  She must have come outside to speak with someone privately.  The party had been so loud that the only quiet place had been the kitchen, and she couldn’t count on even that being private—Cosette had seen Miles and Myrtle tramping through to get water.

Cosette must have known her killer.  Of course, in Bradley this wasn’t exactly outside the realm of possibility.  Everyone in the town knew each other---by sight, anyway.  So maybe it was more as if Cosette knew her killer and
trusted
him. 

Myrtle punched in Red’s number on her phone. 

“Mama?” asked Red.  “Is everything all right?”

“Not exactly, no.  I’m at Cosette’s drop-in….”

Red groaned.  “Oh, Mama.  You’re not going to ask me to make an appearance there, are you?  I’m already settled in for the night with my TV show.  You couldn’t get me to Cosette and Lucas’s party with a cattle prod.”

“Well, I’d better get out my cattle prod.  Cosette is dead.  She was murdered out in the yard, and Miles, Lucas, and I just discovered her.”

This time instead of a groan, there was a muttered oath.  “All right, I’m coming.  Let me call the state police to report it and pull my uniform back on.  She was definitely murdered?”

“No question about it.  She could hardly have hit herself on the head with a croquet mallet,” said Myrtle.

“Croquet mallet?”  She heard Red’s heavy sigh on the other end of the phone.  “I never cared for Cosette much, but she certainly didn’t deserve that.  All right, I’m on my way.  Keep everybody away from the body—that goes for you too, Mama.”

“I wouldn’t dream of interfering with a crime scene,” said Myrtle with a sniff.   She hung up and waited to fend off the inevitable hoard of curious partygoers.

And it didn’t happen.  Myrtle raised her eyebrows.  Miles must be corralling the distraught Lucas in the kitchen.  He always did have a good head on his shoulders.

In fact, the party’s awareness of their hostess’s body in the backyard didn’t occur until Red’s police car showed up at the front of the house.  He didn’t bother walking through the house, choosing instead to come straight around the house to the back.  That was when several of the guests decided to find out where he was going.

The next thing Myrtle knew, there was a throng of guests on the back porch, murmuring to each other in horror. 

Red, who was still talking to the state police on his phone, turned and said, “Everyone please stay inside the house.  No one should leave until I’ve had the opportunity to speak to them.”  He said to Myrtle, “Mama, please back up and get on the back porch or go inside.  Take a seat and I’ll question you in a little bit.”  She must have had a look of great consternation on her face, because he said more gently, “Why don’t you tell everyone inside what’s happened and make sure no one leaves.”

Myrtle was always happier when she had a specific job to do.  She carefully leaned on her cane as she walked back inside and positioned herself by the front door to make sure no one got past her.  The only thing she didn’t do was to tell everyone what had happened.  Because Red had somehow forgotten that in a small town like Bradley, news of murder spread like wildfire.

Sure enough, within minutes, the raucous laughter had all quieted down into solemn murmurs as the guests tried to figure out what was going on.   When they approached the door, Myrtle told them that Red had said that no one could leave until he’d spoken with everyone.

Miles came up to Myrtle, looking irritated, reaching for the front door handle.  “Miles, Red said no one can leave yet.”

He frowned at her.  “Myrtle, I’ve got to get some air.  It’s getting too hot in here with all these bodies packed together.”

“I’m not sure that
bodies
is the right word to use.”

“Regardless.  It’s not like Red can’t find me.  I just want to get outside for a while,” said Miles.

“How was Lucas doing?”

“About how you’d expect.  He really seemed to love Cosette, so he’s very broken up about this.”

Myrtle said, “Where is he?  Is he talking with Red?”

“No, I took him to their bedroom so that he could be away from everyone.  The last I saw, he was playing with blocks with Noah and seemed to be trying really hard to hold himself together,” said Miles.  He pulled the door open.  “Don’t worry, I’ll tell Red that I forced myself past you if he asks.”

He stopped short as he was about to step through the door and made a face. Myrtle pivoted around to see what he was staring at. There was an overflowing bag of trash on the front porch, blocking the way.  “I guess Lucas couldn’t handle hosting duties so perfectly, after all.”

It was taking a while for Red to interview everyone there.

“It’s a large party. It might take a while,” said Myrtle.

Miles had decided that perhaps he should stay at the drop-in after all. “I wouldn’t think Red would have to question
everyone
, though.  Wouldn’t he immediately try to ascertain whether they’d seen or heard anything, then let them go?”

“Who knows?” said Myrtle gloomily.  “He tries to keep me in the dark when it comes to his investigating techniques.  I’m sure he’ll get to us soon.” 

Miles deflated.  Myrtle said, “Don’t be tiresome, Miles. You’re the one who wanted to come to this party.

“Yes, but I never thought I’d be stuck here all night.”

 “Come on, let’s find ourselves a snack while we’re waiting for Red,” said Myrtle, pulling Miles by his sleeve.

Unfortunately, the food on the dining room table had been decimated.  Except for Myrtle’s spinach dip.  “Well, at least the dip is left, Miles. It’s barely been touched. Although the silly people ate all the crackers and left the dip!”

One of the guests overheard her and turned around, “Better keep away from that dip, Miss Myrtle.  It’s lethal.  I don’t know who brought it, but they went way overboard with the mayonnaise. The whole thing was mayonnaise, actually, with small bits of spinach in it. It was pretty sickening.”

Myrtle frowned fiercely, but decided not to claim the dip as her own. Miles finally cracked his first smile of the evening.

And, after all of that, even the interview was cut and dried. 

Red had claimed the kitchen as a temporary police station and listened carefully as Myrtle and Miles explained how they’d looked for Cosette to tell her goodbye and had finally resorted to looking in the backyard.  “How long was it before you noticed that Cosette was missing?” he asked.

Miles and Myrtle stared at each other.  “Maybe forty-five minutes?” guessed Myrtle.  “The last we saw her, she was setting little Noah up with a babysitter.  I don’t think I saw her after that.”

“And shortly afterward, Lucas stepped in with the hosting duties,” said Miles.  “So it wasn’t very long.”

“Did you notice if anyone was conspicuously absent?” asked Red, tilting his head to one side like he always did when he was intent on gathering information.

“Lots of nomadic, restless people at this drop-in,” said Myrtle with a shrug.  “They left the living room for the dining room, for the restroom, for the living room.  I didn’t bother tracking them.”

“Did you see what happened to Joan, Cosette’s daughter?” asked Red.

“I didn’t see her,” said Myrtle.

“I heard that Sybil Nelson seemed upset with Cosette.  Do you know anything about that, Mama?” asked Red.

“Was she?” At least they had another lead to go on.  This corroborated what they’d seen in the kitchen. 

Red jotted down some notes in a small notebook he carried.  “Okay.  So you don’t know anything about Sybil or Joan.  And Lucas—Cosette’s husband,” he said, studying them carefully.  “What do you remember of his movements?”

Myrtle pursed her lips in thought.  “The husband is always the prime suspect, isn’t he? Let’s see.  He was in and out an awful lot, wasn’t he, Miles?”

Miles bobbed his head.  “That’s right.  He was really working hard.  Perspiring, actually, as he’d run in and out of the dining room, taking out empty plates and glasses and coming back for more.  I remember that I felt guilty I wasn’t helping him.”

“So he was removing used dishes,” said Red.

“And bringing out more food, too,” said Myrtle.  “There were these little sandwiches that everyone was gobbling up.”  She made a face.  It was most irritating that her spinach dip hadn’t been as popular as the crust-less sandwiches.

“In other words, he seemed very occupied and he always came right back into the dining room to get dirty plates or to bring fresh food,” said Red.  “There was no time for Lucas to have dodged out into the backyard to murder Cosette?”

Myrtle and Miles considered this.  “Well, now, I wouldn’t say that, either.  Would you, Miles?” asked Myrtle.

“He wasn’t
only
working.  He was being a good host.  Guests were talking to him and he was being friendly,” said Miles.  “It wasn’t like he was only dashing back and forth to the kitchen.”

“And I wasn’t timing him,” said Myrtle.  “He might have gone to the kitchen and spent five minutes or ten minutes in there before returning to the dining room and I wouldn’t have noticed it.  If it had been longer than
that
, I probably would have.  But it seems to me that it wouldn’t have taken much time to run outside, bop Cosette over the head with a croquet mallet, and then quickly resume his hosting duties.  He was already perspiring, as Miles said.  No one would have thought anything of it.”

Red made more notes in his notebook.

Myrtle frowned.  “Don’t you think, though, that whoever is responsible for this murder should have blood stains spattered on his or her top?  Lucas is definitely wearing exactly the same shirt that he had on when we arrived.”

“Unless he has several of the same shirt,” pointed out Miles.

Myrtle glared at him.  “Who on earth has a closet full of the same shirt?”

“I can think of several comic strip characters who must,” said Red in a musing tone.

Miles said, “Sometimes, if I really like a shirt, I’ll buy several of them.  Simply because they’re comfortable.”

“Hmm. That actually makes a lot of sense,” grunted Red.

Myrtle waved her cane at them to get their attention. “Enough!  The point is that it’s
unlikely
that Lucas changed clothes.  Shouldn’t he have blood on him if he did it?”

Red shook his head.  “Not necessarily.  The forensic team will come up with a report, but I’d say by looking at the scene, that any spattering would have gone away from the perpetrator instead of toward him.”  Red closed his notebook.  “Okay, I guess that’s it for now.  I know where to find you if I have any other questions.”

Would he?  Myrtle intended to get to the bottom of this case herself.  Good luck to Red if he tried to find her at home.