You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet: A Study Club Cozy Murder Mystery (The Study Club Mysteries Book 1) (13 page)

Just before Christmas the local hardware store burned to the ground one cold night, leaving nothing but a smoking ruin on Main Street. The fire, which burned hot and fast, was the talk of the town for days. Arson was strongly suspected, especially when several witnesses put Leroy Taylor near the scene that evening, but the investigation ruled the catastrophic event an accident due to negligent maintenance of flammable inventory.

John Powell, the owner of the store, was outraged, insisting that he took the utmost care with all the store’s solvent and paint supplies. His protests were to no avail, and he was dealt an even heavier blow when the insurance company refused to pay him a settlement. For days Powell worked alone, doggedly clearing away the wreckage with a borrowed bulldozer. A new building was going up in place of the wreckage, and rumor had it that Powell had taken out a second mortgage on his house to rebuild and restock.

That drama was soon overshadowed by the discovery of Blake Trinkle dead in the bathroom with the 1967 Gala Christmas edition of
Playboy
clutched in his fingers, the purple and green cover clashing horribly with Maybelline’s baby blue tile. She assured everyone who would listen that Blake purchased the magazine to read John Kenneth Galbraith’s article about “Resolving Our Vietnam Problem,” and that he was most certainly not interested in the nude centerfold of a woman in high heels reclining on a polar bear rug.

Of course, that line of defense only got people asking if Blake wasn’t interested in the naked centerfold, what was it that gave him the heart attack in the first place? The depth of his political convictions? Maybelline just let it go after that, stoutly telling her sisters, “People are going to think what they’re going to think.”

“Seems like every time we take somebody off the list,” Sugar said, “there’s another suspect just standing there in line waiting. Now Clara wants to know why Melinda Sue Fairchild was at the funeral.”

“That gal is gonna go anywhere there’s an audience,” Flowers said. “If she thought she could win Miss Embalming Fluid, she’d make every funeral in six counties.”

They both broke out in peals of laughter that ended in spasms of pre-emphysema coughing. “Lord, have mercy,” Sugar said, wiping her eyes. “Somebody should just give that gal a tiara and put her out of her misery before she kills us all!”

Chapter 14

Millard Philpott lived in a beautiful old craftsman bungalow in a well-established neighborhood at the edge of town. Sitting serenely in the shadow of one of the hills ringing the valley, the house was painted a modest sage with gleaming white trim. For whatever fault his neighbors might find with Millard regarding other matters, no one complained about how he maintained his property. He swept the walk leading down to the mailbox with mechanical precision, trimmed the hedges surrounding the porch with crisp corners, and allowed no weeds to encroach on the riot of colorful flowers in the front beds.

Although he had few visitors, those who did enter the house found gleaming hardwood floors, dark beams and cabinetry, and a generously welcoming fireplace lit throughout the winter months. In the summer, the white curtains on the front windows often billowed outward on the breeze, carrying with them strains of the classical music Millard played while he worked.

Dixie down at the post office got it right when she told Sugar Watson that Millard was an editor. A solitary and reclusive man by nature, he could pass a day with a pencil in his hand and a manuscript on his knee with perfect satisfaction, which is what he’d tried to do when he came from Hilton Milton’s funeral that morning. For most of the rest of the day, however, Millard had been sitting at his desk staring at nothing in particular across the room and thinking. He was still engaged in deep reverie when a knock at the front door startled him back into the present moment.

Putting his work aside, Millard walked to the front door where, to his astonishment, he found Sugar Watson, proprietress of the local beauty salon eponymously named, Sugar’s Style and Spray. She stood on the front porch waiting patiently for him to answer her knock. The rhinestones in her cat eye glasses were glinting in the late afternoon sun and the smile on her face was both broad and genuine.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Philpott,” she said when she saw him approaching. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not at all, Mrs. Watson,” he said, opening the screen and stepping out to stand beside her. “I don’t think we’ve ever had an opportunity to speak before now. To what do I owe this honor?”

“Mr. Philpott,” Sugar said, “maybe we ought to go inside. There’s something I want to talk to you about and I know for a fact your next-door neighbor Ima Jean Trugood can hear what people are talking about three towns over.”

“Please,” he said, smiling, “call me Millard. And you are quite correct, Mrs. Trugood’s hearing is . . . extraordinary to say the least.” He held the door open and stood to the side. “Please come in, and welcome to my home.”

“Thank you,” she said, stepping over the threshold. “And you can call me Sugar. Everybody does.” She paused just inside the door and gasped in astonishment. “Why, this is beautiful! It looks like it ought to be in one of those magazines about architecture. I’m sorry to say it, but you just don’t expect a bachelor man to keep house this nice.”

Millard looked like he wanted to laugh, but instead he said, “I take that as a great compliment. Would you like a glass of tea or perhaps a cup of coffee?”

Sugar’s eyes lit up. “If you have the coffee pot on, I’d love a cup.”

“I do,” he said. “Please make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.”

He walked out of the room leaving Sugar to inspect her surroundings with interest. It was clear from the room’s decor that Philpott was an educated man. Books filled all the shelves, the real kind with elegant leather spines and gold embossed titles. Something told Sugar that there wasn’t a single Reader’s Digest condensed edition anywhere in the place.

One shelf in particular caught her attention. It was filled with books on growing orchids and there was a framed photograph of a group of men and women standing beside an exquisite display of exotic plants, some displaying blue ribbons. From behind her Millard said, “That was taken at the first World Orchid Conference in 1954 in St. Louis, Missouri.”

Sugar turned around as Millard put a silver tray down on the table. The tray held a complete coffee service and a plate of lovely little iced cakes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be nosy.”

“You’re not,” he said congenially. “As I was preparing our coffee, it occurred to me that you are likely here in regard to the orchid I placed on Hilton’s casket. What do you take in your coffee?”

Sugar walked over and sat down on the sofa. “Black is fine, thank you,” she said, somewhat at a loss of how to move the conversation forward. Fortunately, Millard saved her the trouble.

As he poured a stream of coffee expertly into her cup, he said, “I am a member of the American Orchid Society. Three years ago I was part of the Committee for Endangered Species and did work cataloging orchids native to the Big Thicket in East Texas.”

“Orchids grow wild in Texas?” Sugar said, accepting the china cup he held out to her on a proper saucer. “I thought orchids grew in the rain forest down in South America.”

“Oh, they do,” Millard said, serving his own coffee and sitting down in an armchair across from Sugar. “But there are 54 species of wild orchids in Texas. Of those, 36 species are found in the woodlands of East Texas. In the United States proper, there are 200 species of wild orchids. Our native orchids grow in soil, you see. The ones in the tropical rain forests are attached to trees and rocks.”

“I didn’t know that,” Sugar said, reaching for one of the little cakes. She bit into the pastry and raised her eyebrows in surprise when the buttery icing rolled over her tongue in a smooth, rich wave. She swallowed with appreciation and said, “You did not get these down at the bakery.”

Millard laughed. “I confess I did not. I find Myra’s pastries a trifle heavy. I made these myself from my great-grandmother’s recipe. But you did not come here today to talk about botany and baking. What may I do for you, Sugar?”

Suddenly ashamed of herself for no reason she could quite fathom, Sugar felt an uncharacteristic flush coloring her features. “Well, you see, Wanda Jean is a member of the Study Club,” she said, “and we . . . the officers . . . well, we’re trying to help her prove she didn’t kill Hilton. And this morning at the funeral . . . when . . . it’s just that the flower . . . ”

“Are you trying to ask me if I am a homosexual?” Millard asked calmly.

Sugar, who at just that moment was swallowing another bite of cake, choked and coughed until tears filled her eyes. Millard, with an alarmed expression said, “Oh, my. I am so sorry.” He started to rise out of his chair, but Sugar waved him back down, clearing her throat and taking a soothing sip of hot coffee.

When she could speak again, she said, “I didn’t think you’d just come right out with it like that. Using the right word and everything.”

“It is a question that has been put to me before,” Millard explained. “I’m very sorry I startled you so badly. I forget sometimes that these things are not spoken aloud down here. And for the record, no, I am not a homosexual, nor was Hilton Milton to my certain knowledge.”

“You’re not one of . . . those?” Sugar said, arching her eyebrows.

“No,” Millard said with a bemused expression. “But I do understand that a man of my age, living alone, keeping an immaculate home, growing orchids, baking tea cakes, and espousing liberal political views is a figure of some suspicion in our fair community.”

“That’s a pretty big ole understatement,” Sugar said. “You do understand some of that is kind of taking your life in your own hands?”

“I do,” Millard said. “And other than openly campaigning for the Kennedy brothers, which I did because I think all political positions should be represented in a community and no matter that in Texas, liberalism is, frankly, as dead as the Confederacy, I do have a reputation for minding my own business.”

“Don’t let anybody hear you say that about the Confederacy,” Sugar warned. “And it’s true, you do stay off by yourself.”

“I am something of a recluse,” Millard admitted. “And my profession as a freelance editor allows me to work comfortably from my own home. I prefer the company of my flowers and my books over that of my fellow man for the most part. Of that bit of misanthropy, I am admittedly guilty.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, Millard,” Sugar said, “how in the hell did you wind up in a little podunk town in the middle of Texas?”

“Sugar,” he said smiling, “can you possibly imagine where a man like me who wants to be left alone could possibly be more likely to get his wish than a little podunk town in the middle of Texas? So long as I do not cause any trouble, people give me a wide berth.”

Sugar frowned, “If you want folks to leave you alone, then why in the hell did you come to the cemetery and put an orchid tied up with a purple ribbon on Hilton Milton’s casket?”

“Because that was his orchid,” Millard answered sadly, “or at least a single bloom from one of his orchids. I was teaching him the art of cultivating the exquisite blossoms that are my life’s passion. He has, or rather had, a workbench in my greenhouse. I sought his advice on an issue with aphids shortly after I moved here, and he was fascinated by my flowers. We became friends.”

“Well, I will just be damned,” Sugar declared. “That man sure had a lot of secret friends.”

“I assume you are speaking of my fellow horticulturist, Mike Thornton,” Millard said. “I do not know if you have sampled his marijuana, but it is, I believe what is called, ‘top shelf.’”

Sugar sat back against the sofa cushions with a shocked expression. “I thought I knew everything that went on in this town,” she said, “and here I am finding out there’s this whole pot-smoking, orchid-growing, liberal political . . .”

As she paused, fumbling for the word, Millard said, “I believe the phrase you are looking for is ‘sub-culture.’ And you are quite correct, Hilton voted for JFK and planned to cast his ballot for Bobby as well.”

Sugar regarded him with horror. “Hilton was a Kennedy supporter?”

“Yes,” Millard said, “which is, I believe, worse than a homosexual on the local scale of immorality and debauchery.”

“If not worse, damn sure neck and neck,” Sugar agreed. “So when Hilton was over here supposedly spraying your house, you two were doing what, exactly?”

“We discussed politics and books, played the occasional game of chess, and discussed orchids,” Millard said. “Hilton had an excellent mind, and he dreamed of doing things far beyond the confines of this little town. It was, in fact, that excellent mind that I believe resulted in his murder. More coffee?”

Sugar nodded numbly and held out her cup and saucer. Aas Millard poured from the silver pot, he continued to talk. “You see,” he said, “Hilton did not approach any topic of study lightly. When he became a volunteer fireman, he began to read about the behavior of fires. When the hardware store burned, he shared with me his belief that the fire was intentionally set. He shared that belief, by the way, with his brother-in-law, Blake Trinkle.”

Wheels were starting to turn in Sugar’s head, a fact not lost on Millard. “I see you are putting the pieces together,” he said, refilling his own cup. “Both Hilton and Blake disagreed with Deputy Hank Howard, who is, as you know, also the local fire marshall, that the fire was an accident. Even after Blake’s untimely death, Hilton would not let the matter go. A week before his death, he told me that he thought there might be a connection between Hank Howard and the insurance company that refused to pay John Powell the claim to which he was due.”

“And Maybelline Trinkle and Hank Howard are supposedly having an affair,” Sugar said thoughtfully.

“Precisely,” Millard said. “I find it something less than a coincidence that the two men who were in the best position to make a case for the hardware store fire being arson are both now dead.”