A Body in the Backyard (21 page)

“No, no, I mean could you come over here for a stakeout?  After the post runs on the
Bugle
blog, and after I start blabbing about my progress around town tomorrow morning, I think the murderer might make another trip over to my house tomorrow night. That means I can catch him in the act, since I don’t have any proof about my suspicions.”

Miles said, “So you know who did it?”

“They’re only suspicions. I’ll know for sure tomorrow night. So, do you just want to pull an all-nighter?  We could just hang out in the living room with the lights out. Maybe read with some book lights.”

“Sounds exciting,” said Miles, rolling his eyes. “Won’t Erma find an excuse to come over so that she can spy on us and see if we’re embroiled in a secret romance?”

“Nope. I’ve found a way to scare her off. Photo albums. She’s apparently just as allergic to photo albums as she is to cats. Which is good, because my photo albums are always around and Pasha is unreliable.”

“We might end up with all kinds of excitement,” continued Myrtle. “So, if someone breaks into my house with the door key, you’ll just duck out of sight. I’ll have my pepper spray and my cane and you can surprise them when they get close. Does that sound reasonable?”

“I don’t know if anything having to do with two elderly crime-fighters attacking a murderer in the middle of the night is reasonable, but it’s doable. What time do you want me to come over tomorrow evening?” asked Miles.

“Not too early, because this guy will probably come by in the middle of the night,” said Myrtle.

“Well, or in broad daylight,” said Miles. “What about Lee?  He was killed at something like ten o’clock in the morning.”

“But the murderer’s goal was obviously not to be detected. And when was he most likely to go undetected?  When everyone on this street was at Charles Clayborne’s funeral. So I’m thinking this killer is clever enough not to want to show up at my house when the neighbors are still stirring and might look out their windows.”

“You’re thinking I should come over around eleven or so?” asked Miles.

“I think so. And just be very surreptitious when you do. Don’t be jingling change in your pocket or whistling or anything like that.”

“Like I ever do,” said Miles with a sigh. And they both grinned at each other. Things were happily back to normal.

Chapter Seventeen

The next morning, Myrtle checked her computer. She saw that her blog post had indeed published as she’d scheduled it.

There was also another interesting post on the
Bradley Bugle
’s blog. Apparently, Connie Clayborne was offering a reward for information involving the murder of her son. Myrtle blinked. It was a reward for five thousand dollars. The best part of all was that Connie was only asking for information, not an arrest. Myrtle smiled.

There was a light tap at her front door. This was puzzling at around seven in the morning, but not nearly as scary as the unexpected knock on the door last night. Myrtle looked out the front window and saw Annette there, still in her scrubs.

“Hi, Miss Myrtle,” said Annette. “I’m on my way home, so I can’t come in to visit. But I just wanted to let you know real quick that I found my pocketbook so that you wouldn’t feel you had to keep looking for it. It had slid under the front seat of the car and I couldn’t see it.”

Myrtle had completely forgotten about her pocketbook. But she quickly said, “Oh good! I’m so glad you found it.” She noticed there were some dark circles under Annette’s eyes. From working the night shift at the hospital?  Or something else?  “Is there something wrong?” she asked. “You look like you might have something else on your mind.”

Annette shrugged. “It’s probably nothing. It’s just that Silas and I are still arguing about everything. We had an argument before I left for work last night, too. I kind of dread going home tonight.”

“No, I suppose not. What have y’all been arguing about…your relationship with Charles still?”

“That’s at the bottom of every argument, even if it’s technically not what we’re fussing over,” said Annette. “But last night, we did actually argue about Charles. During the argument, it came out that Silas had followed Charles the night he died.” She shifted her weight uncomfortably.

 “Did he say anything else after that?  He didn’t confess to killing Charles, did he?”

“Nothing like that. That’s about the time that I stormed off to work, since I was going to be late if I didn’t go ahead and leave. Plus, the whole conversation was making me feel sick. I still don’t think that Silas could kill anybody, but it’s bad enough that he was even
there
the night Charles died.” Annette’s face was pale and unhappy.

“Are you going to ask him about it when you get home?  What time does Silas leave for work?” asked Myrtle.

“He usually goes in at nine o’clock, so I have some time. I was going to go to Bo’s Diner, eat breakfast, and kill time until he leaves the house. No, I wasn’t going to ask him any more about it—the whole conversation was making me feel sick. But I can’t stand not knowing, either.” Annette hesitated. “Miss Myrtle, I hate to ask you this. It’s just that you seem very interested and helpful. Could you possibly….?”

“I’d love to!” said Myrtle in a rush. Then she decided that was inappropriately enthusiastic, so she edited herself to say, “I mean, of course I’d be happy to help you out and ask Silas what happened the night Charles was murdered. In fact, you might have seen my post on the
Bradley Bugle
’s site today—I’m really getting close to piecing together who’s behind these murders.”

Annette wrinkled her brow as if she couldn’t quite imagine why Myrtle would be investigating the murders to begin with. “I’m doing some investigative reporting for the paper. I’m a correspondent for them, you know.”

“I didn’t realize that, no,” said Annette, still sounding dubious. “I don’t read the paper very much—even online.” Then her eyes widened with alarm. “You’re not going to put anything about Silas in the paper, are you?” They got even bigger when another thought occurred to her. “Or tell Red about this?”

“No, I won’t put a thing in the paper about it. And, believe me, I’m just trying to stay out of Red’s way right now. He’s convinced I need to be an inmate at the Greener Pastures retirement home. What’s the best way for me to catch up with Silas? I know he’s an electrician—does he spend much time at his shop, or is he on calls most of the time?”

“It depends. It might be better if you go ahead and run by there now, before he leaves for work,” said Annette. “He usually gets ready right away and then just watches TV and eats cereal before he leaves, so you won’t be interrupting his routine.”

Annette took her leave and Myrtle got dressed quickly to go see Silas. She hesitated for  a second, then called Miles. “I know it’s early, but do you mind going with me to Silas Dawson’s house?”

He hadn’t minded much, but it had taken another ten minutes for him to get ready. By the time he pulled up in her driveway, Myrtle was getting worried that Silas would have already left before they got there.

“I understand about needing the ride to get to Silas’s house quickly,” said Miles in a mild voice as he sped away, “but why do you want me to go in with you?”

Myrtle snorted. “Because I think I’ve become completely paranoid. Somebody’s playing with my head. They’ve come in my house, they’ve played obnoxious pranks, and they’ve killed people in my yard. So it crossed my mind that maybe Annette and Silas are setting me up to come over to their house to be murdered myself.” She gave a short laugh that was tinged with hysteria.

Miles’s eyes opened wide behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “You don’t really think
that’s
going to happen, do you?”

“Not really, but it was awfully convenient for Annette to happen by and ask me to ask Silas tough questions about the murder. It made me wonder, that’s all. I’m sure she was genuinely looking for someone to listen to her and relieve her mind so that she didn’t have to worry that she was living with a murderer,” said Myrtle.

They pulled up into Silas’s driveway, and Myrtle breathed a sigh of relief that his van was still there.

“What’s your cover this time?” asked Miles quietly as they walked up the walkway. “You’re not using that pocketbook story you were telling me about again, are you?”

“No, and that wasn’t a story, anyway! It was true. No, I’m just going to tell him what I put on the blog this morning—that I’m writing an investigative report for the newspaper and could he answer a few questions for me,” said Myrtle.

Miles looked uneasy. “I read that blog post, by the way. I thought that you were laying it on pretty thick, saying that you had almost pieced together who the murderer was and would be exposing him in the paper.”

“Well, I had to lay it on thick so I could get him to come after me. I’m playing it safe, after all—you’re coming over at eleven tonight and we’re all prepared. And just in case our murderer…or murderers…”said Myrtle mysteriously, “don’t read the paper’s website, I’m going to spread the news verbally today, too.”

Myrtle rapped on the door with her cane and Silas answered the door. He raised his eyebrows when he saw Myrtle. “More ugly pocketbooks to show me?” he asked. “Look, I’ve got to finish getting ready for work here. Can you make this snappy?”

Silas didn’t appear to be in a wonderful mood. He gave Myrtle and Miles an irritated glare.

“You might not be aware of this, Silas, but I’m an investigative reporter on the staff of the
Bradley Bugle
.”

Myrtle paused to let Silas fully absorb the importance of this position, but he looked supremely unimpressed.

She continued, a harder edge in her voice now. “I’ve been poking around in the murders of Charles Clayborne and Lee Woosley. A witness has put you near the scene of the crime slightly before Charles Clayborne was murdered. This witness said you were following the victim.” There. It hadn’t been necessary to mention Annette after all.

Silas bared his teeth and Miles made a loud, gulping sound, as if his throat had suddenly gone dry. “This witness wouldn’t happen to be my wife, would it?”

Myrtle lifted her chin, looking down her nose at Silas. It was good to be tall, even if she’d been shrinking in recent years. “It would not. I’m not at liberty to reveal any information about my sources, however.”

Somehow, the icy disdain and sense of authority that Myrtle was still able to channel, even after years of retirement from school teaching, was enough to convince Silas. “Yeah, I followed him the night he died. I didn’t kill him, though.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police?” Miles ventured.

“Why do you think?” sneered Silas. “They’d have pegged the murder on me. And I didn’t do it. My hat’s off to the guy who did, though.”

“What made you decide to follow Charles?” asked Myrtle.

“I was driving around kind of aimlessly, just trying to steady my nerves,” said Silas. He stopped and looked at Myrtle’s doubtful face. “Okay, it was more than just that. I was looking to see if I saw Annette’s car anywhere it shouldn’t be. I wanted to see what she was up to and if she was still having an affair with Charles. I spotted Charles walking toward your house,” he nodded at Myrtle. “There was a woman following him. It was real shadowy, though, and I couldn’t see who the woman was.”

Myrtle frowned. “A woman
following
Charles?  So it looked like they weren’t together?”

“Well, I thought they were together, naturally. I parked my work van a short ways away so I wouldn’t scare them off. I thought maybe I could get some proof that Annette hadn’t stopped their relationship. But after I’d parked the van—wouldn’t you know it?— I got a call from one of my regular customers on my cell phone. I finally got off the phone with him and started back where I’d last seen Charles and the woman.”

He continued with a sigh. “When I got up to your yard, there was no sign of the woman. And Charles Clayborne was dead on the ground.”

Myrtle drew in a sharp breath. “So…Annette…”

Silas cut her off right there. “Nope. Annette had an alibi. She was still working the day shift then and they held her over when her shift ended. So Annette was at the hospital in front of a bunch of witnesses when Charles Clayborne was killed.

So who was the woman? 

“So who was the woman?” asked Miles, echoing her thoughts as they drove back home.

“I’m thinking it had to be Peggy Neighbors,” said Myrtle. “She was the one who was so gaga over Charles. I can totally see her following him and trying to convince him that he needed to marry her—and be a dad to their daughter.”

Miles nodded. “So then he rejected her again—possibly cruelly this time—and she hit him over the head with your Viking gnome?”

“Maybe. After all, she was probably pretty upset and frustrated,” said Myrtle.

Miles pulled the car up into Myrtle’s driveway. Puddin was crouched in Myrtle’s front yard, over a gnome with a goofy grin that was holding a beer stein. “Okay, I give up,” said Myrtle to Miles. “What do you think she’s doing out there with my tipsy yard art?”

“I have a sneaking suspicion,” said Miles with a grim face. “Knowing Puddin, this could be why people have been coming and going throughout your house, without breaking in.”

Myrtle knitted her brows at that statement and peered harder out the car window. Puddin was now running her chubby hand on the ground around the drunken gnome. She had a puzzled expression on her face.

“Let me guess,” said Myrtle through gritted teeth. “Puddin has been keeping a house key in my gnome’s beer stein. Not
under
the gnome even, but in plain sight of anyone who happened to be paying even casual attention.”

“And now,” said Miles, “that key appears to be missing. Much to Puddin’s surprise.”

Myrtle pushed open the car door and fumbled with her cane. “Thanks for the ride, Miles. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Be careful, Myrtle,” said Miles.

“Oh, I really don’t think the murderer is going to come after me in broad daylight.”

“No, I mean be careful not to get too mad at Puddin. You don’t need a body in your
front
yard, too,” said Miles.