A Body at Bunco (28 page)

Myrtle strolled over to Sloan’s desk, took off the heavy, wool coat, and sat down at his desk to wait. She figured she’d fess up to her social media dabblings so that he wouldn’t keep thinking they’d somehow been hacked. If she pulled up the
Bugle
’s accounts, she could explain why the publicity was such a good thing, and maybe tell him about the car dealership and her plans for getting the advertisers back.

She jiggled the computer mouse on the desk and saw that Sloan was still logged in to the Twitter and Facebook accounts. Myrtle would have thought that he’d have learned his lesson about not signing out, but it certainly made it easier for her. Looking at the updates, she saw that everyone was uploading their own news and pictures and tagging the
Bradley Bugle
in them. Robert Finley had apparently caught a huge fish in the lake yesterday and he’d just uploaded a picture of him, the fish, and a yardstick. Myrtle made a face. She hated to think she sometimes swam in the lake with creatures that big in it.

Pasha bounded past her and she drew her feet up a little. Thinking of creatures, she’d just as soon not have one brush against her in its attempt to escape.

Myrtle was so absorbed in the Twitter and Facebook windows that she didn’t immediately notice when the door to the
Bugle
opened. But when she glanced up and saw that it was Mimsy, and that Mimsy had a hammer and was still trying to adjust her eyes from going from bright sunshine outside to the dark interior of the newsroom, she quickly and silently typed on the Twitter and Facebook accounts
Help! It’s Myrtle Clover. Trapped in the
Bugle
downtown office with killer!
There was no time to dig out her phone or grab the desk phone because Mimsy had already spotted her. But she did close the windows to the sites.

Mimsy said in a too-calm voice, “Stop right there, Miss Myrtle. There will be no phone calls or texting now. And if Red calls or texts you, you’re not picking it up. I saw your last text message to him.”

Myrtle said, equally calmly, “If Red calls or texts me and I
don’t
pick up, then he’s going to start looking for me. And there are only a few places I’d be. This is one of them.” This wasn’t completely true, but Myrtle figured that Mimsy wouldn’t know otherwise.

“Then when he comes looking, he’ll find your body. Which probably would work out better than Sloan finding it. Sloan is in such poor condition that he might have a heart attack. And I’d hate it if anything happened to our local paper. Changes in leadership aren’t always good,” said Mimsy thoughtfully.

Myrtle’s chill up her spine was back. Mimsy was completely cold. Completely calculating. Completely dangerous. She could only hope that either Sloan would come back and be somewhat helpful and brave or that somebody … anybody … was on Facebook or Twitter and could see her message in time.

Mimsy continued talking in her calm monotone. “I really do hate to do this. You’re sort of the matriarch of the town, aren’t you, Miss Myrtle? I’ve always rather admired you. You never had to play sweet to fit in, did you? You never pretended to be anyone but yourself.”

Myrtle frowned at her. “Who else would I be? What kind of a life is it if you’re putting on an act all the time? Is that what you’ve done, Mimsy? Put on an act? You weren’t the Lady Bountiful, actually, were you? Did you have contempt for all those people you were helping through your volunteering?” She needed to keep her talking. That hammer was way too close and Mimsy was much younger and much stronger.

Mimsy stared at her. “Contempt for them? Why on earth would I volunteer so much if I felt that way?”

To Myrtle, though, it seemed as if Mimsy were genuinely asking a question. As if she wanted to hear the answer herself.

“Do you watch
Tomorrow’s Promise
, Mimsy? The soap opera?”

Now she really appeared to have gotten Mimsy’s attention. “Sometimes. Not always, though.”

“Have you watched the storyline with Briana in it?” asked Myrtle. Her hand was shaking so much that she put it in her lap so that she could match Mimsy’s calmness.

Mimsy tilted her head slightly to the side. “The one with Briana turning into a terrorist?”

“That’s right,” said Myrtle in a very measured voice. “Briana, who has always been sort of a clueless hair stylist, suddenly took a very visible role in the soap opera when she joined a radical terrorist cell.”

Mimsy said, “Which wasn’t very believable.”

“I’m not so sure. You may not have watched the more recent episodes, but it takes us inside Briana’s
house
, not just the salon where we usually see her. There we see that maybe she’s been having something of a double life. She has some material around her home that shows us that she’s been interested in various fringe groups. She’s bookmarked websites that show that she is sympathetic to these very radical Middle Eastern religious groups. So we see that it
wasn’t
such an abrupt transformation, but something that’s been happening all along,” said Myrtle.

Mimsy’s face was curious. “And you’re saying that Briana was a terrorist all along … that it was everyone else who just saw a mild-mannered beautician.”

“Exactly.” Myrtle thought she heard voices outside. But then she realized it was only squirrels fussing at each other on a limb outside the window.

“But what makes you think that
I’m
like Briana?” asked Mimsy. She absently hit the hammer on the palm of her other hand.

Myrtle took a deep, calming breath. “I’ve heard that you ran with a fast crowd in high school. Florence even blamed you for her nephew’s death. If there’s one thing I know after decades of teaching, it’s that people usually are fundamentally the same as when they’re in high school. They’re in different situations as adults, yes. Yes, as adults they have more experience to pull from when they make their decisions. But their character, their personality, their ethics … most of these things stayed the same for the students that I had.”

Mimsy shrugged. “Maybe Denny’s death was a wake-up call for me.”

Myrtle gave Mimsy the direct, piercing stare that she used to train on students most in need of correcting. “There were no wake-up calls for you, Mimsy. That’s why you have to be stopped. This all started because you needed money, didn’t it? To maintain this storybook lifestyle you had? John is out of work and who knows how long that’s been going on, since he commutes out of town. So you killed Luella, knowing that you were the only heir to an inheritance. There was nothing personal against Luella. I kept looking for someone who resented Luella. But you were only looking for what you could
get
from her.” Wanda’s croaking words came back to Myrtle:
Ain’t nothin’ personal with that Luella
.

“Her death was merely a means to an end. I’d no hard feelings for Luella. And your yardman left such a handy weapon nearby,” said Mimsy with a smirk.

“What would you have done if there
hadn’t
been a handy weapon?” asked Myrtle.

“I’d just have had a casual conversation with Luella while she smoked,” said Mimsy.

Myrtle said, “You created a diversion by saying you’d lost your earring. That brought in several people from the kitchen to the living room. You were taking a tremendous risk. Anyone from the party might have seen you go out. Anyone might have seen you come back in.”

Mimsy laughed. “If someone had seen me come back in, I’d have been shuddering with fear and grief because I’d just discovered poor Luella dead in your backyard.”

Myrtle gazed at her thoughtfully for a moment. “You needed the thrill, didn’t you? Killing Luella on such a tight deadline. Breaking into Alma’s home and murdering her while your husband was out of town. Making it appear as if someone was setting you up for the crimes when, actually, you
were
committing the crimes. And why was it necessary for poor Alma to die?”

“Because Alma was desperate for money and she spotted me coming out of the backyard after killing Luella. She unwisely decided to blackmail me, realizing that I would soon come into an inheritance. But Alma was demanding a lot of money that I didn’t yet have. John has lost a mint with his day trading. So money
was
the key motive for murdering both Luella and Alma. But, sure, boredom played into it, too. Let’s face it, Miss Myrtle. I’ve been a little bored here in Bradley. Maybe you’re right about leopards not changing their spots. I’ve been playing nice for a long, long time. I’ve participated in all the available activities in Bradley.”

Myrtle actually felt a tiny twinge of sympathy toward Mimsy. “Of which there aren’t many. Activities, I mean.”

“That’s right. You and I have been in something of the same boat, haven’t we, Miss Myrtle?” Mimsy seemed startled by the realization.

“Except that my boat isn’t sinking. If
I
get bored, I investigate crimes. I don’t commit crimes,” said Myrtle. She furtively raised her hand to search for
some
kind of weapon to use against Mimsy since she wasn’t sure she could raise her cane up in time, especially with Mimsy being so close to her. Her fingers only came in contact with paper, however. Did Sloan have
nothing
but piles of paper on his desk? Myrtle was starting to feel helpless and it wasn’t a feeling she was accustomed to or enjoyed.

“And now you’ve driven me to have to commit another,” said Mimsy.

She actually managed to sound regretful. Myrtle trained her stern gaze on Mimsy again. “You don’t have to do this. Turn yourself in peacefully to Red. It’s better to be tried for only two deaths.”

Mimsy said laconically, “I have a feeling it doesn’t matter much once you get past two murders.”

“Don’t be silly. Besides, Sloan will be here any minute,” said Myrtle.

“I doubt that. Because once I saw where you were headed, I slashed the tire on Sloan’s truck. Besides, he was also juggling what appeared to be an angry mob upset about the changes at the newspaper. I do believe he’ll be delayed for a while.” Mimsy’s eyes glinted with satisfaction. “Face it, Miss Myrtle—no one’s coming.”

With that, the door burst open and a crowd of people rushed in. Myrtle spotted an odd assortment of Miles, Dusty, Erma, the fisherman from the Facebook post, and Georgia Simpson. What’s more, they appeared to all be armed with various weapons. Dusty wielded a rake, Georgia a tire iron, Erma waved a hideous plaster vase, the fisherman gripped a 2x4 plank of wood, and Miles inexplicably held a shovel. It looked like a revolt of the peasants.

Mimsy gaped at them for a moment before howling and lifting the hammer at Myrtle. Myrtle ducked down, at the same time whacking at Mimsy’s legs with her cane. Mimsy cursed but still stood and was ready to strike with the hammer … until Pasha chose that moment to run across Sloan’s desk chasing her scampering furry prey.

Once Mimsy spotted the mouse, which was now pausing and trying to decide if Pasha or Mimsy were scarier, she shrieked and directed the hammer at the mouse, instead. But Mimsy appeared to have bad aim. The mouse escaped and made a run for the door as more screaming ensued … this time from the collective rescue party, which dashed toward Mimsy and Myrtle.

Mimsy abandoned killing Myrtle and ran away from the door toward the back of the newsroom. But Erma Sherman was running straight at her, in terrified escape from Pasha.

Pasha was clearly disturbed from all the screaming and running around by the humans in the room, and leapt at Mimsy, who caught her neatly and screamed behind her, “Everyone stay back! You’re all going to let me out of here or I kill the cat.”

Pasha the Feral Cat didn’t make a good hostage, however. She savagely bit and clawed until Mimsy gave a sharp exclamation and let her go. Mimsy then bolted for the front door and right into Red’s arms as he pushed open the door.

Red took one look at the band of Bradley residents, metaphorical pitchforks in hand and all yelling at him, took out his handcuffs, and restrained Mimsy.

Fifteen minutes later, Red had called the state police to pick up and process Mimsy who was spitefully keeping silent. In the meantime, he’d contacted his deputy, Darrell Smith to sit with her in the nearby police station while Red spoke with everyone in the
Bradley Bugle
newsroom.

Sloan had returned by this time, dismayed at having missed all the action. “You’ll come up with a write-up of Mimsy’s arrest, won’t you?” he asked Myrtle in a low voice.

Myrtle was about to answer him when she was distracted by the realization that she no longer had the long, wool coat on. But it was too late to cover up. Red finally took a good look at her and lit up. “Mama! You’re wearing your present!”

Myrtle bared her teeth in a smile. “Why, of course I am. You know how much I loved it.”

Miles gave her a sympathetic look.

Myrtle said to Sloan, “Yes, of course I’ll write up the story. Just keep my words
as-is
.”

Myrtle waited at Sloan’s desk as Red carefully talked to everyone who’d come to her rescue, everyone who was now a witness to a very different Mimsy. From time to time Red glanced Myrtle’s way as if hearing something alarming and wanting to see with his own eyes that she was completely intact. She gave him a small wave whenever he did so.

Sloan stood near Myrtle and was surreptitiously snapping pictures of everyone. Including Myrtle. “Stop that!” she hissed at Sloan.

Miles and Georgia Simpson were beside them, waiting their turn to give a statement to Red.

Sloan said, “So what was behind everyone showing up at the
Bugle
office?” He gave a nervous laugh. “I guess y’all didn’t show up, armed, because of the editorial direction of the newspaper?”

Georgia had pulled out a cigarette and Sloan appeared unable to offer even a weak protest. Georgia’s eyebrows were plucked nearly away so that she could draw her own expressions in. Today’s expression was fairly hostile. Miles could only stare at her in horrified fascination. Between the cigarette, the big helmet of hair, the tattoos, and the glowering eyebrows, and the tire iron she wielded, no one was going to get in her way today. After taking a big puff from the cigarette, Georgia responded, “We got the frantic tweet and Facebook update. Figured, if somebody put Myrtle in danger, I was going after them. Nobody messes with Myrtle.”