Death Pays a Visit (A Myrtle Clover Mystery Book 7) (14 page)

Puddin’s eyes held a familiar combination of sullenness and stubbornness that Myrtle recognized well. “Haven’t! Won’t! Besides, he just done it this morning, didn’t he? Left all spiffy in his uniform. Didn’t have a chance to ask him about it, but wanted to find out where he was going.”

“Yes, it was rather dim of Dusty not to realize you might have questions about why he was suddenly looking so professional,” said Myrtle. “But that might also strengthen the case that the underlying explanation is completely innocent.”

Puddin squinted her eyes. “You’re not speakin’ English again, Miz Myrtle.”

Myrtle sighed. “I’m just saying that you’ve had a long and … er … happy marriage to Dusty. You should give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“I ain’t givin’ that lowlife nuthin!”

Myrtle felt a sudden rising panic. The panic was one that she’d felt off and on through the years. Finding domestic help of any kind or quality was a challenge in a town the size of Bradley, North Carolina. What if Dusty and Puddin were to divorce? Puddin was a sorry housekeeper, but she was cheap and Myrtle knew how to keep her motivated enough to at least get one or two deep cleaning jobs out of her each session.

Dusty was also cheap and was also difficult to motivate to work. But he was the only yardman in town who’d weed-eat with his edger around her garden gnomes. Those garden gnomes that she pulled out to irritate the stew out of Red whenever he stepped out of line were vital to keeping the peace on Magnolia Lane.

Anything upsetting this delicate balance would be a bad thing. What if Puddin were to divorce Dusty, meet some other yardman in some other town, and move away? Myrtle doubted very much that she could ever clean her own baseboards again. And the thought of chasing dust bunnies from under her bed was equally unappealing. Something would have to be done.

Myrtle was just opening her mouth to assure Puddin that Erma would not be appealing as an amour to
anyone
, even a man such as Dusty, when Puddin suddenly pinned her down with a sharp look from her small eyes. “You’re a private eye, Miz Myrtle. Can you help me?”

“A private eye? Like Sam Spade? Certainly not!” That would involve wearing a fedora, drinking lots of scotch, and having a dame as a client. Puddin was no dame and Myrtle had a preference for sherry. She’d reserve judgment on the fedora. Who knows? Maybe she’d look good in one.

“Whatever. You poke around in stuff. You’re nosy. You can spy on Dusty for me,” said Puddin, waving her pudgy hands around in her agitation.

That sounded tedious. Myrtle was fairly sure that Dusty’s day was very routine-oriented and revolved around a hearty breakfast, checking the oil in his yard equipment, complaining about working, doing a bit of work for whichever client he was most behind on, then returning home for a celebratory six-pack. “You’re wanting me to
follow
Dusty?”

Puddin gave Myrtle an impatient look. “Naw! You don’t drive, do you? Just watch him out the window if he shows up at your neighbor’s house. That’s all. Look out your windows if he’s next door. You can do that, can’t you? ‘Cause now he’s done with her yard and he shouldn’t be back here later today, right?”

“What is it that makes you think that Dusty could possibly have any interest at all in Erma Sherman? Because I can assure you, she’s not exactly a femme fatale.”

Puddin squinted at her suspiciously. “Is that English?”

“I mean, Erma doesn’t have a lot of dates,” said Myrtle in exasperation.

Puddin didn’t seem prepared to take Myrtle’s word on this. “All I know is that he got all gussied up to come here today. And early, too. He’s up to something.”

“All right, Puddin. I’ll keep an eye out for him, don’t worry. I’ll get to the bottom of it,” said Myrtle with a sigh.

Puddin knitted her brows. “I don’t have to pay you or nuthin’, do I?”

“You can pay me back by showing some eagerness for cleaning. You can return my phone calls instead of saying that your answering machine is broken.”

Puddin said quickly, “But it
is
broke.”

“And you can stop telling me that ‘your back is thrown’ whenever I ask you to polish silver, dust, or do any other housekeeping that you don’t enjoy,” added Myrtle.

Puddin watched her sullenly for a few moments. Then she nodded, reluctantly. “I guess so.”

“It’s a deal then,” said Myrtle briskly. “And I’ll let you get started on your end by cleaning up around here. You haven’t come for the last couple of weeks and the dust bunnies are starting to procreate.”

Puddin gave a loud sigh. Then she quickly glanced around her. “That witch cat isn’t here, is it?”

“Pasha? No. Pasha is busy subduing nature, I’m sure.” Myrtle paused. “Actually, you know, I think I’m going to take Pasha with me over to Greener Pastures today. Ruby has been dying to see her.”

“Whose car is she going to rip up?” asked Puddin with pursed lips. “That cat’s a devil.”

“She’s a love,” corrected Myrtle. “And she won’t be ripping anyone’s car up. I’ll put her in a cat carrier like any normal, humane person would. The poor thing would be scared silly if I put her in a moving vehicle to run around and look out windows and such. The very idea.”

“Just make sure you don’t put her in a carrier when
I’m
around, Miz Myrtle. Don’t want to get sliced to smithereens with them claws. And remember—you’re keeping an eye on Dusty.”

The phone rang. Myrtle called behind her as she hurried toward the kitchen phone. “Never you mind about Dusty. I know what to do. Just worry about those dust bunnies.”

Myrtle grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

“Sweetie?” asked a fluttery, confused-sounding voice on the other end.

“Ruby,” said Myrtle. “How are you today?”

“Sort of good,” said Ruby. “They had omelets this morning in the dining hall. It’s special when they have them because they make them fresh for each person. You get to tell them exactly how you want them and then they make the omelets right in front of you. So you can choose ham or spinach or bacon or turkey or broccoli or Swiss cheese.”

Ruby continued listing all the possible ingredients of an omelet until Myrtle cut her off. “Ruby. You called to tell me something. Remember? What did you call to tell me?”

Ruby hesitated. “Do
you
know? Why I would have called you?”

Myrtle suppressed a sigh. “Would it have had something to do with Mickey’s death? Did you find out some information? Has anyone called you again or threatened you in any way? Have you talked with one of the people we think could be involved in Mickey’s murder? Have you heard from the police?” She stopped, all out of guesses.

Ruby paused on her end long enough for Myrtle to wonder if she were taking a short nap. Then she finally said, “Noooo. No, none of those are right.” She stopped again, and then said, “I’ve got it! Mickey’s daughter. That girl. She’s here today and starting to clean out Mickey’s room.”

“You mean Natalie?” Natalie was hardly a girl, even to someone of Myrtle’s advanced years.

“That’s right,” said Ruby excitedly. “Can you come over? So you can speak to her.”

Myrtle looked at her wall clock. “I’ll call Miles and we’ll get over there as soon as possible.”

When Myrtle phoned Miles, he sounded fairly enthusiastic about heading back over to the retirement home. Myrtle suspected that it might have something to do with Scrabble or checkers. Or perhaps the chocolate cake that he’d eaten with such gusto after their lunch in the dining hall the other day.

“Sure, sounds like a good time to talk to Natalie,” said Miles in a cheery voice. “It’s going to be hard to find as many opportunities to interview her as it is everyone else so let’s hop on any chance we get.”

“Great,” said Myrtle. She paused, and then added quickly, “We’ll have an additional passenger with us today.”

“Wanda? You know, I was just thinking that we should probably take Wanda over to Greener Pastures. She’s key to the whole investigation, don’t you think? And she clearly knows something—as evidenced by her cryptic postcard yesterday.”

Myrtle frowned. “Nooo…no, I don’t think Wanda is key to anything. I think Wanda is taking a role of….well, maybe a whistleblowing role. And she does know a lot, but the problem with what Wanda knows is that it’s all these bits of flotsam, sort of bobbing around in her head. She doesn’t know how to put any of it into context. So she’s
helpful
, but she’s not
that
helpful.”

“Not Wanda?” asked Miles. “Then who were you thinking of?”

“Pasha?” said Myrtle quickly.

“What!” Miles’s voice became high-pitched in his anxiety and Myrtle moved the phone’s receiver away from her ear.

“Obviously, you must have heard me, so I won’t repeat it. I’m bringing Pasha with us. Ruby is dying to see her and the cat will be perfectly behaved in her cat carrier,” said Myrtle.

Puddin gave a loud disbelieving snort behind her and Myrtle shot her a venomous look.

“Won’t the sensation of movement drive her crazy?” asked Miles dubiously. “And are you sure that cats are allowed at Greener Pastures?”

“Pasha is too sophisticated to be concerned by the sensation of movement. Greener Pastures allows therapy animals to visit the home,” said Myrtle. At least, she believed they did. They were so far behind the times that maybe they hadn’t formed a policy on therapy animals.

“All right,” said Miles, sounding uncertain.

While Miles was still knocked a bit off-balance, Myrtle said, “And I need you to do a favor for me, Miles. When you come over, I need you to talk to Dusty. Man-to-man.”

Puddin gave a thumbs-up and an approving nod of her head.

“Talk to Dusty? Man-to-man? Myrtle, what’s this all about?”

Myrtle said, “I’ll give you the low-down on the way to Greener Pastures. For now, all you need to do is to catch Dusty outside, which certainly shouldn’t be hard, since he’s working on Erma’s yard, and just have a little small talk with him. Ask him how his life is. And admire Erma—assiduously. Then see what his reaction is, or what he says.”

Puddin nodded fiercely.

Miles said in a pained but dignified voice, “Myrtle, I hope there is a very, very good explanation for this.”

“There is, but I don’t have time to explain the problem right now, or perhaps the inclination,” she said, eyeing Puddin, who was avidly and openly listening in on her conversation. “Just please do what I say. Watch for his reaction. And then let me know. We need to get over to Greener Pastures to catch Natalie Pelias before she’s finished packing up Mickey’s things for the day.” She gently set down the receiver.

Puddin was absently pushing a filthy dust rag across Myrtle’s dining room table, going over the same spot repeatedly. “What’re you going to do now?” she asked.

“Capture Pasha,” said Myrtle simply.

Chapter Twelve

Fifteen minutes later, she, Miles, and Pasha were on their way to Greener Pastures. Miles looked warily in his rearview mirror toward his backseat. “I’m not sure how you got Pasha in there.”

The cat was silently sitting in the carrier. “She was remarkably docile,” said Myrtle. “Really just a little love.”

“So you put lots of treats in the carrier, did you?” asked Miles.

“Just enough to provide incentive,” said Myrtle, nose in the air.

Pasha gave a hiccupping burp from the back.

“So tell me all about what Dusty said,” said Myrtle. “I cannot express to you the serious nature of this business. Puddin is in a shambles, believing Dusty is unfaithful. I
must
preserve their union or suffer the consequences.”

Miles gave her a sideways glance. “Hyperbole doesn’t become you, Myrtle. And I don’t really understand what you’re talking about. I told Dusty that Erma was such an attractive woman and he gave me an appraising look and then spat chewing tobacco on the ground.”

Myrtle made a face. “Sounds like Dusty, all right. So he’s being cagey about it. I’ll have to see what I can find out on my own, I suppose.”

“Cagey? No, just taciturn as usual. Good luck getting anything out of him.” Miles drove on for a few minutes and then said as he carefully maneuvered into a parking spot at Greener Pastures, “What exactly are we asking Natalie, by the way? I’m assuming we’re taking a more gentle approach with her. Considering that she just lost her mom and everything.”

“Gentle? You were just saying that she’s our most likely candidate as suspect. In that case, we should go in with the mindset that she
orchestrated
the loss of her mom. It seems to me that being gentle with a killer is not really going to get us anywhere,” said Myrtle.

“I was simply throwing out ideas. I feel bad for Natalie.” said Miles.

“But you’ve got to be open to the possibility that there are other strong candidates for murderer,” said Myrtle. “For heaven’s sake—even the Greener Pastures staff could be involved.”

Miles looked sideways at her as he turned off the engine. “You’re not seriously suggesting that the retirement home could have something to do with her death.”

“Why not? It makes perfect sense to me. Mickey Pelias was becoming a problem for them. She continued to write inflammatory stories that showed Greener Pastures in a bad light.”

“We don’t know that,” interjected Miles.

“Sure we do. Mickey herself said that the staff took her newspapers away whenever they found them.”

“I think we need to read some of these newspapers to confirm that,” said Miles stubbornly. “Mickey might have been playing to her audience.”

“Agreed. But how are we planning to get our hands on these newspapers? From what I heard, they were destroyed as soon as they were printed. It’s a wonder Greener Pastures didn’t go even farther and disable Mickey’s printer,” said Myrtle.

Miles thought about this. “Maybe there are some in Mickey’s room? Could we ask Natalie for them? And if there aren’t any in her room, Ruby could potentially have some. She thought that everything Mickey did was amazing, so it stands to reason that she might have preserved some of the newspapers.”

“All right. So we’ll pop in on Ruby first and let her play with Pasha,” said Myrtle.

“You might want to issue a general warning regarding the sharpness of Pasha’s claws and teeth,” said Miles pointedly.