Progressive Dinner Deadly (21 page)

Myrtle looked discomfited. “From Kojak.”

“Kojak!”

“Yes,” said Myrtle with great irritation. “Don’t look like that. I didn’t have a long intellectual conversation with the dog or anything. But Willow had called me the morning after she’d tried to kill me.”

Myrtle ignored the fact that Red was holding his head like it hurt. “She only wanted me to check on Kojak for her. She thought I was a big animal lover because of the Friends of Ferals thing. And maybe I am,” said Myrtle, thinking gratefully again about Pasha’s role in saving her life. “I suggested that maybe Kojak could have a home with Simon and Libba. Apparently, they’d already taken in the cat, Miss Chivis. But Willow was adamant that Kojak hated Simon. I guess the dog had witnessed too many scuffles between Cullen and his master’s brother.”

Perkins nodded encouragingly.

“But when I went over there, Kojak was really wailing. He sounded horrible. Sherry and I went in and discovered Cullen’s body, which had been what upset the dog so badly.”

“Then,” Myrtle continued, “I went over to the Caulfields’ house to bring some food over. Tippy had gotten me on that bereavement committee so Blanche and I went over to visit.”

Red looked concerned. “Libba Caulfield ate your food, Mama?”

“And
loved
every bite,” said Myrtle. She had no idea whether Libba had even eaten any of the casserole, but she was really getting quite fed up with these inferences.

“Anyway,” said Myrtle, “Simon came in with shorts on and a huge bandage on his leg. Like something had tried to eat him.”

Red frowned, “I don’t think Cullen was in any shape to have fought Simon off, Mama.”

“No, no!
Kojak
had bitten him. The dog had attacked Simon when he killed his master.”

“And when I asked Simon how he’d gotten hurt, he said he’d been hurt while mowing his brother’s grass. But I’d
seen
Tiny Kirk out there, mowing the grass, when I was looking after Kojak. I
knew
Simon had lied. And then, when I’d gotten back home, I heard dogs barking outside and I remembered poor Kojak.”

Perkins and Red looked at each other again. Myrtle thought they looked tired.

“But Red, you’ll be delighted to hear that I’ve got plans to do some quieter activities now.”

Red raised his eyebrows.

“I’m going to write the most exciting story the
Bradley Bugle
readers have ever read. It’s going to be the perfect follow-up to the story I wrote about Willow. And maybe,” said Myrtle, “I’ll even blog about it. You know—put some extra bits of information on the blog for the online readers.”

Red put his head in his hands like he thought it might go spinning off. “Wait. You’re exercising at the gym—and working out enough to fend off a man over thirty years younger than you are. You’ve started going back to church. You managed to cook a casserole that apparently didn’t kill Libba Caulfield (at least as far as we’re aware.) And you’re
blogging
too?”

Myrtle looked smug. “Social media is the new frontier.” Myrtle wasn’t exactly sure what social media
was
, but she loved the complete bewilderment on Red’s face. The next week was going to be fun. Wait ‘til she joined Twitter.