Pretty is as Pretty Dies (A Myrtle Clover Mystery) (16 page)

Detective Lieutenant Perkins walked out of Red's office and
joined Red in the station lobby. "How's she doing?" he asked in a
quiet voice.

Red rolled his eyes. "She's doing just fine and wild to get her
bloodhound nose back on the trail. Probably ready to go back out to the lake and look for clues about her attacker. Maybe she'll go
back in the middle of the night to recreate the scene."

Red sighed. He took a big gulp from his coffee mug and
thought back to his "to do" list. "And I'll take the opportunity to
cut back her bushes while she's out of the house. Apparently
they're big enough to house all kinds of predators. She's real particular about those shrubs ... you'd think they were her children.
She never wants more than just a little bit taken off the top, then I
end up going back out there to cut more off after a good rain. They
need a good pruning this time." He made a hacking motion with
his hands that boded ill for Myrtle's shrubbery. "She's going over
to see Elaine and the baby this afternoon, so that'll be my chance."

"Doesn't she have a yard man to help her with her yard?"

Red gave a short laugh. "I don't think Dusty does enough work
to classify him as a bona fide yard man. The grass is either too wet,
too dry, too polleny to cut, or else the weather is too windy or too
hot. And he doesn't do bushes anymore, so I'm the lucky guy with
that job. I do everything that Dusty isn't up to doing. Mama hates
those yard warriors, so she chose Dusty."

"Yard warriors?"

"Oh, you know them. They're the ones who wake you up on
Saturday morning with blowers strapped to their backs and a
weedwhacker in their hand. Mama says the noise makes her teeth
jangle. Dusty's mower is from the 1970s and goes `putt-putt' He
can't afford the loud yard equipment and he's too puny to pull the
start cords, anyway."

"Sounds like a real gem."

"You should meet his wife, Puddin. She does-or doesn't doMama's housekeeping."

Perkins watched Red fume for a minute and had the feeling
Myrtle's bushes were going to pay the price. He said, "You know,
Red, maybe this will be the end of the line for her with the case. It
must have scared her to death to have been thrown into the lake
like that. She could have broken a bone with the impact ... or
drowned. Surely that's got to give her second thoughts about continuing on with the case."

"It would give a normal octogenarian woman second thoughts.
No ... strike that. A normal octogenarian woman wouldn't be involved with a murder case." Red sighed. "Maybe you're right. This
could be it. I'm hoping there's a romantic interest in her life
now... her rescuer was the new neighbor who lives a couple of
doors down from her."

"Sounds promising."

"We'll see," said Red glumly. "Even if they're just friends, maybe
it'll be enough to distract her from snooping."

Myrtle was distracted from snooping, but only because her turn at
Altar Guild was up again. This trip to the church had not proven
nearly as eventful and was spent actually arranging flowers with
Kitty Kirk (back to simple arrangements) while discussing updating the church's sound system. She was going to have to tell Nathaniel that the Altar Guild wasn't really her thing. Otherwise she'd
be sticking flowers in vases until she was dead and buried.

Her mind wandered while Kitty and the other ladies talked.
Being in the sanctuary had reminded her of the funeral. She wondered again about Cecil Stockard. He had such a sly, sneaky air about him. But could he have been angry enough with his mother
to kill her in cold blood? She could see him wheedling her. She
could even picture him stealing money from her. But Cecil Stockard-guilty of matricide? She couldn't believe he had the guts to
kill his mother. He seemed much more of a backhanded type than
a bludgeon-you-with-an-offering-plate-from-close-up type. A
stray glance toward her yard stopped her dead in her tracks.

"What the hell did Red do to my bushes?" she shrieked. She
hurried into her house and punched the numbers with a shaking
finger. "What the hell did Red do to my bushes?" she repeated into
the phone.

Elaine, who was trying to scrape very thick, dark coffee crud
from the bottom of the coffee carafe (and trying to forget that
Jean-Marc had called American coffee "an abomination!") answered, "Hmm?"

"Red! My bushes!"

"Oh." Myrtle wasn't to know that Red was trying to eliminate
hiding places for bad guys. Red was also hoping to get fired by Myrtle as her makeshift yardman. All under the cover of making the
bushes more security-friendly. "Did he do a bad job with them?"

"A massacre would have been an improvement."

"The bushes are that bad?" Elaine gave a faint smile at JeanMarc as he sauntered into the kitchen. He raised his eyebrows with
interest at her stressed tone and walked over to the window, pulling the mini-blinds out of the way. Elaine heard a French oath,
followed by what sounded like his usual opinion: "abominable!"
Jean-Marc whirled around and walked toward Elaine. "Permit
me?" he asked, motioning to the phone.

Elaine relinquished the receiver with relief.

"Madame" Elaine could have sworn she saw him give a small
bow. "Please allow me to assist in the liberation of your jardin."
Apparently Myrtle felt the need to offer a perfunctory protest because he shook his head emphatically. "Non. My pleasure." Myrtle
spoke for a minute and Jean-Marc grunted an agreement. "Oui. I
will come then. Your bush-shez will be much improved." He hung
up the phone and walked to the window again. "Zut alors."

Elaine stifled her giggle and scrubbed fervently at the coffee
pot. Looks like Red had gotten himself off the hook as Myrtle's
resident gardener. She only hoped the yard gnomes wouldn't live
in the front yard forever. She was hoping that Myrtle had gotten
over her grudge, but the gnomes stayed. At this rate, they were
going to have to start weed-eating around them, and that really
was going to be a chore.

Myrtle spotted the wall clock and suddenly remembered her
lunch date with Josh Tucker. She grabbed her pocketbook and
cane and slipped out the door. He'd probably already be there
when she arrived, but wouldn't have waited long enough to leave.

She waited a moment for her eyes to adjust from the bright sunshine to the dim interior of the diner. The brown-paneled walls
contributed to the dark effect, but Myrtle soon spotted Josh Tucker
sitting at a green, Formica-topped table in a vinyl booth. She
crossed the shining linoleum floor and Josh stood respectfully as
she cautiously sank down onto the low booth.

A waitress in a pink, ruffled apron stopped by the table with a
glass of water and handed Josh a plate of fried vegetables. She asked if Myrtle wanted to go ahead and order. Myrtle glanced over
the laminated menu, although she knew it by heart. "Just a grilled
cheese and fries this time, please." The waitress walked off and
Myrtle said, "Sorry I kept you waiting, josh."

"That's no problem, Miss Myrtle," he said. "I was just starting
to get a little worried about you, that's all." He gave her a searching, reporter-like look.

Myrtle hesitated, then decided not to tell him about the attack
on her the night before. It didn't actually have anything to do with
the reason she was late, and she didn't really want it to be publicized and have all the suspects getting their guard up when she
was around. It wouldn't help if they all realized she was investigating the case instead of merely being gossipy.

Instead she took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of deep-frying grease. "I just love this place," she said. "Everything tastes a little better when it's fried."

Josh gave a perfunctory smile, which disappeared in the deep
lines in his face. "Bo's Diner was one of the places I missed when I
was up North. Not that they don't have a ton of places to eat in
New York, but no one seemed to cook fried food like Bo. I'd have
thought too much was bad for you, but judging from your longevity, maybe I'm wrong." He was quickly delving into the food on his
plate, making short work of it.

Myrtle dismissively waved a hand. "Oh, I'm strong as an ox. My
arteries are clear as a bell." She had been curious about what would
make josh decide to leave the New York Times and return to Bradley. "What made you decide to come back home? Did you just miss
your hometown, or have your parents been ailing? I haven't seen
Martin and Jill for a while."

Josh lifted a beefy hand and smoothed it over his comb-over
several times, his hooded, gray eyes revealing nothing. "Mom and
Dad are all right. They're just getting older and since I'm their only
child, I felt like I should be around in case they needed me. New
York isn't all that close to North Carolina, you know."

But it's only a short plane ride, thought Myrtle. Especially when
his parents were completely healthy. There must be more to the
story than that. "Well, I know that Sloan Jones is happy to have
you at the Bradley Bugle. He thinks you're a real feather in his cap.
Award-winning writer and all that." With difficulty, Myrtle was
able to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. She reminded herself not
to call him "Wonder Boy." Not to his face, anyway.

Josh gave her a polite smile and then said in a firm tone, "You
said you had some information for me?" At Myrtle's blank expression, he prompted, "You said something that you and Kitty had
been talking about." He reached into a briefcase and pulled out a
miniature tape recorder.

Had she? She remembered with panic that was indeed how she
managed to set up this meeting. But the actual purpose was for her
to get information from him. She thought fast. She could always
play up the foggy-old-lady angle. Fogginess was pretty believable
at her age.

"Yes, Josh, I did discover something from talking to Kitty. I found
out," she leaned forward and spoke breathlessly, "that Kitty Kirk had
been at the church that morning!" Myrtle sat back and looked at
Josh triumphantly and tried not to laugh at his crestfallen face.

He said gently, "But didn't we already know that, Miss Myrtle?
She was there early to put the wildflower arrangement out. It
doesn't mean she was still there when Parke Stockard was killed. She was supposed to have left and gone back home before coming
back to the church for the United Methodist Women meeting you
arrived for." He stabbed at the last few bites of his veggie plate.

"Oh, did we already know that?" Myrtle adopted a confused
look. "But don't you think it's odd that she put the flowers out so
early? I mean, I was supposed to help her with the arrangement
before the United Methodist Women meeting ... which was why I
was in the sanctuary at all."

He blushed when he mentioned Parke. That must have been
some crush. "She probably wanted to get the flowers set up in the
sanctuary before Parke Stockard arrived. Parke was bent on putting in formal arrangements of flowers, you know, and didn't like
Kitty's wildflowers."

"The wildflowers that made it easier for you to attend church
with your allergies, right? That was kind of Kitty."

"She's a kind person," said Josh. He looked pointedly at his
watch and said, "Was there anything else, Miss Myrtle?"

Now she was going to have to stall for time. "Actually, there is
something, Josh. I was hoping you could do something about the
way the Bugle does the obituary page."

Josh looked longingly at the door and pushed his comb-over
off his large forehead.

"I mentioned it to Sloan before, of course, and he did absolutely
nothing about it. It just drives me nuts, looking at the obituaries
every week and seeing those smiling faces beaming out at me. Like
the deceased are grinning right at me and saying, `We're just so delighted to be dead, thanks for asking' Don't you think we could have
a no-picture policy? Give the dead folks some dignity?"

Josh gave a sour-looking smile. "I'll see what I can do, Miss
Myrtle. Now I really do have to be..."

The waitress came back with Myrtle's grilled cheese. Myrtle
quickly figured out what she wanted to ask josh while he was caught
off guard. "I was wondering, josh," said Myrtle, "if you'd been at the
church that morning, too." She took a deep breath and lied. "Someone mentioned they'd seen you driving up or back or something."
She smiled apologetically for her fuzziness.