A Body in the Backyard (4 page)

Elaine chuckled. “I see. So you’re wanting to review these pictures.”

Myrtle shrugged. “Maybe I can even give you some tips. Not that I know much about photography, but maybe I can think of some places for you to go to get different types of shots.” She said thoughtfully, “Like Cousin Charles’s funeral.”

“Myrtle! I can’t just go around taking pictures at a private funeral. Sloan doesn’t put that kind of stuff in the newspaper—it would be an invasion of privacy. And grief.”

“I’m not saying that anyone has to actually see you taking them, Elaine. Maybe you can just use your zoom lens and take some from inside your car. We can study them later on. It could be good practice, taking long distance shots,” said Myrtle.

“Maybe. When is the funeral?”

Myrtle said, “I’m not exactly sure. I guess they’ll have to do an autopsy on the body first before they release him to the family. I’d think it would be a few days away.” She paused. “I’m going to be giving the reception for the family after the funeral.”

Elaine’s eyes opened wide. “You are?  At your house?”

“I thought it would be a good idea. Who knows—maybe Charles’s killer will be in attendance and I can pick up some clues,” said Myrtle.

“You’re planning on serving food?” Elaine’s voice sounded strained.

Myrtle gave a frustrated sigh. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?  Of course I’m serving food. It’s a Southern funeral. People will be expecting ham biscuits, cucumber sandwiches, pimento cheese, and fried chicken. They’ll want to feel
comforted
, for heaven’s sake.”

Elaine gave a quick nod, looking away. “Well, let me know when they set a date and time and I’ll come. I’m happy to bring some food, too, to help you out.”

“Thanks.” Myrtle leaned on her cane and stood up. “I probably should be getting home now. If I’m going to be hosting this thing, I need to call Dusty and Puddin and convince them to come back. Knowing those two, they probably consider themselves done for the week.” She peered out Elaine’s front window.

“Is the coast clear?” asked Elaine dryly.

“No signs of Erma Sherman, although that doesn’t mean she’s not spying on your house and waiting for me to walk out your door. Nosy woman,” said Myrtle in irritation.

If Elaine thought that was the pot calling the kettle black, she wisely gave no indication of it.

Chapter Four

Unfortunately, Erma
was
lying in wait for her. She must have had that long nose of hers pressed up against the window, watching for Myrtle to come out. Myrtle’s cane was only halfway out Elaine’s door when Erma came galloping out of her house. Myrtle groaned.

For years, she’d come up with a range of polite excuses to be on her way instead of engaging in conversation with her next-door neighbor. She’d say that she had a pot boiling or that she was expecting an important phone call. Erma was one of those rare people who were completely oblivious to polite excuses. She kept right on bulldozing through a monologue of the confusing dream she’d had the night before or the rash she couldn’t seem to get rid of. Erma wasn’t the type who even picked up on rudeness.

“Myrtle!” said Erma, grabbing her arm and pulling her along to her house. “Come with me and sit down for a while. You must be in shock from finding a body in your backyard. I was in shock one time. It does funny things to you. Makes you feel like you can’t breathe, makes your chest hurt. Makes you go numb….”

“Aren’t those the symptoms of a heart attack?” asked Myrtle irritably. “If you’re feeling any of those now, you should get over to the emergency room.”

“No, this was from a long time ago. When I won the sweepstakes. Not the really
big
prize, but it was a lot of money. A lot! And I was in shock, that’s what the doctor said.”

Myrtle pulled her arm away. “I can’t talk now, Erma—I’ve got to make some phone calls. To Puddin and Dusty, for one.”

“Those two! I don’t know why you put up with them.” Erma gawked in horror at Myrtle’s yard, which admittedly did look pretty horrible with the half-mowed grass and the weeds sticking up around all the gnomes’ heels. “If my yard looked like that, then I’d be firing my yardman right away. And Puddin….” Her voice trailed off as she became uncharacteristically speechless.

Myrtle said, “Yes, well, if I got rid of them I wouldn’t be able to find anyone else, would I?  You know how Bradley is. The only other yardman around here is so booked up that he can only mow every other week at all of his customer’s houses. Same with the housekeepers—all the good ones are booked solid. Puddin is a disgrace, but at least she’s available to work.” Most of the time.

“Whatever. What I really wanted to tell you, Myrtle, is that I know who is behind this! I was awake last night around ten or eleven and kept hearing noises and seeing things. That awful cat of yours was making so much racket that I turned on my oscillating fan to drown out the sound so I could sleep. Now that I know about the murder, though, everything is clear to me.” Erma smirked at Myrtle in a secretive, smug way.

“Who’s the killer then, Erma?  Who did it?” asked Myrtle.

Erma leaned close enough into Myrtle that she could smell the onions on her breath. She whispered, “It was Miles. I know it for a fact. Miles killed the man in your backyard. You should watch out for him—he’s a very dangerous man. He lives close. The victim was related to him and reportedly wanted his money. And Pasha hates him. Yes, it was Miles. He’s a killer.”

Myrtle snorted. “I’ll take that under advisement, Erma.” She walked away from her as quickly as she could, cane thumping on the ground as she went.

“It’s true,” she yodeled from behind Myrtle. “I have clues! And I’m telling Red about them!”

“You do that,” hollered Myrtle as she hurried away. Madness. She was always surrounded by complete and utter madness.

She closed the door behind her and locked it—
not
because Red had told her to, but because she was scared spitless that crazy Erma Sherman would come barreling through the door to tell her all her clues and theories about Miles being a killer. Miles. On the bright side, though, if she blabbed coyly to enough people that she knew who the murderer was and that she had clues, then
she, herself
might end up as a body in the backyard.

Myrtle walked to her small desk and pulled out a notebook and pencil. She was going to need to talk to suspects and she needed to ascertain whom these suspects might be. She tapped the pencil against the notebook. There was Lee Woosley, for one…the guy who’d been fighting with Charles at a poker game just the other night. Could he have killed him out of rage?  But why would he have followed him over to Myrtle’s house to kill him? 

And there was Hugh Bass—Myrtle’s dentist. Elaine’s picture of Charles and Hugh together had been pretty interesting. Dr. Bass wasn’t a particularly grim man, but he’d sure looked serious in that picture. Charles’s face had been telling, too—he had a very knowing expression. There’d also been a touch of unholy glee present on his features.

So she definitely wanted to talk to those two. And neither one sounded particularly likely to go to the funeral to pay his respects. Myrtle reached out for the phone.

“Yes, I’d like to make an appointment please, Pam. For a cleaning, if I could. I’m sure I’m probably due for one. What?  That long ago?  Tomorrow morning will be fine, if you can fit me in. This is with Dr. Bass, right?  I don’t want to see anyone else. You still don’t have any other doctors in the practice, right?  Okay, thanks.” At least she could have a chance to talk to Dr. Bass by himself. If she could get rid of the hygienist, that is.

Lee Woosley. Hmm. Well, she wasn’t prepared to start playing poker in order to hang out with Lee for a while. What on earth did the man do for a living?  She tapped the pencil against the paper as she thought. Didn’t he do repairs of some kind? That’s right—he was a handyman. She glanced around her living room. There had to be something that needed to be repaired around here. The problem was that Red was always messing in her business and popping over with his toolbox to fix things. But that meant that he’d know what still needed fixing.

She hesitated, then picked up the phone again.

Red answered, sounding hurried. There were voices in the background that had an official edge to them. “Mama?  Hey, what’s going on?  I’ve got the state police here, talking over the case.”

“In your tiny office?  Shouldn’t y’all meet out somewhere or something?” asked Myrtle.

“It’s not exactly a conversation to have at the ice cream parlor, Mama. Or Bo’s Diner. What’s up?”

“Do you know, offhand, what kinds of repairs I need to make to my house?  You know—the honey-do type stuff?” asked Myrtle.

“Why do you have to know this right now?  I’ve been asking you to take care of that stuff for ages or to make me a list so that I could help you with it. Is there a problem at your house?” Myrtle could tell by his voice that he was getting worked up. He always thought her house was some kind of deathtrap. If he had his way, she’d have been at Greener Pastures retirement home for the last couple of decades.

“No, no problem. I’m just trying to be proactive,” said Myrtle.

Now Red sounded suspicious. “Proactive?  About repairs in your house?  This
is
Myrtle Clover that I’m on the phone with, right?”

“Don’t be so sassy, Red. Now think. What repairs are needed at my house that you know of?”

“There’s the towel rack in the hall bathroom for one—it’s coming off the wall.”

“Okay,” said Myrtle, jotting that down on her notepad.

“And your tub needs to be caulked,” said Red.

“All right.”

“Your garbage disposal doesn’t really work—I think it may need replacing,” said Red.

“Hmm.”

“The light in your closet has some sort of short or something in it that needs to be checked out. I don’t want you stumbling in your closet in the dark,” said Red.

“Fine,” said Myrtle in a tight voice, starting to feel irritated.

“The planter on the back wall of your house pulled off the wall and needs to be put back up,” said Red helpfully.

“I think that’s probably enough.”

“A grab bar in your tub would be very useful, Mama. And I don’t really know where to get started with your dock. One day it’s just going to come loose from its moorings and start floating away on the lake with the boat still attached.”

Myrtle fumed, tapping the pencil on the paper again.

“The toilet paper holder in the hall bath is also trying to come off the wall,” said Red. “Oh, and you could use a door stop on your backdoor—your backdoor keeps hitting your kitchen counter whenever it swings open too far.”

“Enough!” said Myrtle. This would cost her a mint. “Good luck with your case,” she said and hung up. For heaven’s sake.

Myrtle walked back over to her desk and woke up her computer. She typed in Lee Woosley’s name into the local business listing page and pulled up his phone number.

“Lee?” she said, minutes later. “This is Myrtle Clover.”

“Mrs. Clover?” Lee had apparently been napping and her name was enough to startle him out of his sleep. “Wow, I haven’t talked to you since English class about thirty years ago.”

“Yes. Well. Hope you’re doing well.” Myrtle was a retired English teacher and was used to former students being bumfuddled in her presence. “Listen, I was hoping you could help me out with some projects I need to get taken care of around my house.”

“Oh, I see. You have some home repair projects that you need help with,” said Lee, sounding relieved.

“That’s right.”

Lee laughed ruefully. “I kind of had a flashback there for a moment. Thought you were going to ask me to come in for extra tutoring in English or something. You know how that wasn’t my subject.”

Had he
had
a subject he was good at?  Myrtle doubted it.

“Want me to come out tomorrow?” asked Lee.

Myrtle started to agree, but remembered she’d just set up that dental appointment for the next day. Since she hadn’t made it over there for a while, who knew how long it would take?  “Maybe the next day will be better, Lee.”

“What kind of stuff do you need done, Mrs. Clover?” asked Lee.

She glanced at the list she’d made from the talk with Red. There was no way she was going to get him to do all these things when she really just wanted to talk to him about Charles. “Nothing too exciting. I have a towel rack and a toilet paper holder that are pulling away from the wall and a tub that needs caulking,” said Myrtle. “Oh and there’s a planter that I’d really like hung back up to the side of my house. It pulled off and I can’t get it to stay back on.”

They arranged a time for a couple of days out and Myrtle hung up, feeling pleased with herself. This was coming along nicely. At this rate, she’d know who the killer was before Red had even started questioning suspects.

After all the excitement of a body in the yard and all the activity that followed it, Myrtle decided to put her feet up for a little while. Most of the time she really didn’t feel her eighty-odd years, but when she
did
it was always her feet that gave her away.

Her insomnia from the night before had apparently had more of an impact on her than she thought. A few minutes after she’d started her recording of her soap opera,
Tomorrow’s Promise
, she dropped off to sleep. Later, this would irritate her because she wouldn’t know where exactly she’d left off and would need to find the spot.

The sound of her doorbell usually would make her jump into life but this time the sound didn’t jar her into awareness because she thought she must be hearing it on the television. By the time she realized it actually was her own doorbell, her caller had taken to rapping on the door. “Coming!” she called loudly, reaching down to fumble for her cane. The cane developed a mind of its own and scooted away from Myrtle under the coffee table. “Shoot! Hold your horses, I’m coming!”

She finally got to the door and peeped out to make sure there wasn’t a maniacal killer on her doorstep. It was only Sloan Jones, her editor at the local newspaper and another former student of hers. He was ordinarily a little intimidated by his former teacher but had lately gotten more comfortable in Myrtle’s presence.