Death at a Drop-In (18 page)

Myrtle wasn’t in much of a talkative mood on the way back. 

Red said, “Mama, if you’re that off-balance, we probably need to think about getting you a walker. Or taking a closer look at Greener Pastures Retirement Home.  People tell me all the time how much their folks enjoy living over there.”

“I’m not off-balance,” grated Myrtle. “And I
was
being careful. I was on the ramp.  I won’t even acknowledge
that place
you brought up.”

He pulled all the way up into her driveway and hurried out to help Myrtle before she could even get out of the car.  “I’m not feeble, you know,” she muttered.

Red continued ignoring her, fumbling his key ring from his pocket and finding his key to her house.  Myrtle kept meaning to change the locks. But it gave her the superstitious feeling that changing the locks would mean she’d promptly fall and break something and need his help.

“Why don’t you lie down for a while, hmm?” asked Red absently, as he opened the door and ushered her in.  “Might make you feel better.  I’ll get you some tea and an ibuprofen.”

The whole thing made Myrtle feel very cranky.  Even worse now that her arms and legs were starting to throb.  “I don’t want to lie down for a while.”

“Can I call Trina Baker?  She’s an R.N.  It might be nice to get her opinion.”

“It would be good to have someone give an opinion that supports my assertion that I was pushed down that ramp.”

Red pressed his lips shut as if keeping any errant words from flying out.  He said mildly, glancing at his watch, “Except that’s not what happened.  All right, then.  You don’t want to lie down, so let’s get you set up in your chair with your soap.  It’s almost time for it to start.”

Myrtle moved slowly to her chair and sat down, nestling down into the seat.  Suddenly, she did feel exhausted.  Red turned her show on, and then hustled into the kitchen to get her tea and ibuprofen.  The sound of growling and hissing quickly made a smile tease at the corner of her lips.  Red cussed. 

“Shouldn’t leave your kitchen window open, Mama,” he called to her.  “You don’t want this spawn of Satan feline in the house with you, do you?” he asked.  “Let me see if I can lure it out with some tuna or something.”

Before he could find any cans of tuna in the cabinet, Pasha had run into the living room,  jumped up in the overstuffed armchair, and curled against her.  Myrtle raised her eyebrows in surprise.  Pasha was sweet with her, but this was a first.  “Clever kitty,” she said, stroking her softly and hearing a rumbling purr in response.

Red made a face when he saw the cat in her lap.  “Haven’t you been injured enough today? I don’t trust that cat not to scratch or bite you if it got the idea in its head.” 

“Pasha wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.  Red handed her the drink and pill and she drank it down.

Red hesitated, and then said, “While I’ve got you here, there was one other thing I wanted to ask you.  It seems that Felix Nelson keeps turning up in our investigation and I don’t know what to make of it.” 

Myrtle gave him an appraising look.  “Is that so?”

“I even heard that you visited him in his office.  I was talking to him this morning—something to do with the case—and he seemed to be trying to get me to convince you that life insurance was a good idea.”  Red rubbed at his forehead, looking perplexed.  “I nearly laughed out loud I’ve got to tell you.  Then he told me that you were planning on getting life insurance to help us pay for your final expenses, and I really did think he’d lost his mind.  I know you’re planning the cheapest funeral ever.  I’m imagining that you were there doing some kind of investigating.”  Red gave an irritated sigh.  “But try as I might, I can’t figure out why you’re investigating Felix.”

Myrtle suddenly felt very pleased with herself.  She knew something that Red didn’t.  She decided to wait before responding—sometimes that made Red uncomfortable and he ended up giving things away.

Sure enough, he quickly filled the silence.  “I do know that Felix had a business relationship with the Whitlows.”

“Did Lucas have a big policy on Cosette?” asked Myrtle.

“He sure did.  She had a policy on him, too, but it wasn’t nearly as big.  Apparently, this was some kind of compliment that Lucas was paying Cosette—showing her how much he valued her or something.”  Red shrugged.  “But I happen to think that a million dollar policy is a bit more than a compliment.  It’s a motive. Especially since the Whitlows were hurting for money.  But let’s get back to why you were visiting with Felix.”

“Well, my final expenses.  You know.”  She tried the pause again.

And again Red interjected into the pause.  “Do you know something about Felix and the Whitlows that I don’t?”  She kept quiet and petted Pasha.  He sighed.  “I know that Felix was seen having a heated discussion with Tobin not long before he died.  I’m wondering if he’s also connected to Cosette in some way.”

“Felix argued with Tobin?  How on earth do they know each other?” asked Myrtle.  But she remembered that Joan had mentioned seeing Felix, in a business suit, walking near the cemetery on the day of the funeral.

“They’ve probably always known each other.  It’s Bradley, after all.  Or maybe Tobin does Felix’s yard work for him.  I’ll find out why they argued, don’t worry,” said Red grimly.  “And remember—it’s not your job to investigate, it’s mine.  I do want to know why you visited Felix at his office and whether it had anything to do with Cosette’s drop-in.”

Myrtle paused.  Red had given her a tidbit of information, so maybe she should give him one, too.  It wasn’t as if he were going to solve the case before she did.  “The night of the party, Felix and Cosette had some sort of an argument. Sybil walked into the kitchen too late to hear what it was about. So yes, I’d say there was more going on between Felix and Cosette than life insurance.  Although I don’t know what, and I don’t know who felt what for whom.”

Red gazed steadily at his mother.  “What was this argument about?”

Myrtle shook her head, frustrated.  “That’s the thing.  Miles and I couldn’t really tell what it was about.  Maybe there were allegations or accusations of one kind or another leveled earlier, but by the time we were listening in, we didn’t get any details.”

“What was your interpretation of what you saw?” asked Red.  Then he saw Myrtle balking about giving more information and he cajoled, “You always have good intuition about these things, Mama.”

Red knew she had a hard time resisting praise from him.  She glowed in his approval for a moment and then said, “I guess I thought that it was a love triangle of some kind.  That was what seemed to make the most sense. And Sybil seems to think that Felix was worried that Cosette was acting too affectionate toward him in public.”

“And Lucas wasn’t in the kitchen to hear all that?” he asked.

Myrtle shook her head.  “At that point, he was visiting with the guests.  It wasn’t until Cosette disappeared and the food and drinks obviously needed to be replaced, that he stepped in and started taking on hosting duties by going back and forth from the kitchen.”  Now was the time to press Red for what he might have heard about Lucas—since she hadn’t gotten far with that end of the investigation.  “Is he still as much of a suspect?”

Red was still mulling over what Myrtle had told him, so he was only halfway listening to her.  When his guard was down, she usually could get all kinds of information from him.  “He’s the husband, so yes.  But we haven’t been able to pin anything on him.  No one saw him going outside or coming back inside.  No one has ever seen him have an argument with his wife.  By all accounts, he was devoted to her.  He did have a huge life insurance policy on Cosette, though, so that’s still a little suspect. And he did have a run-in with Tobin.”

Myrtle blinked at him, and then tried to cover up any surprise on her face so Red wouldn’t shut down.  She said casually, “Ahh.  Is that because of the long-standing neighbor-feud that Cosette and Tobin had?”

“Who knows what the truth really is?” said Red with a sigh.  “Tobin is dead, so he can’t tell us.  And Lucas just politely says that our witness to the argument misinterpreted what she saw.  He says that he was in his yard and became visibly overcome with grief and Tobin came over to comfort him and that’s what the witness saw.”

“The witness?” asked Myrtle delicately.

“Erma.”  Red grinned at her. “Your favorite person.”

Myrtle made a face.  It seemed as if all roads led back to Erma in this case.  Maybe she’d done the wrong thing by directing that cub reporter to talk with her.

“I’m going to go ahead and let you enjoy your soap, Mama.  And now you need to forget about the case and leave it up to me to chase the bad guys.  You’re starting to look kind of puny, so be sure to rest, all right?”  He snapped his fingers.  “I know what.  You should work on your knitting.  That’s a nice, peaceful activity.  And you’ll stay busy while you’re resting.”

Myrtle considered that a somewhat patronizing statement, but
was
actually feeling puny, so she let it slide.  Red locked the door behind him as Myrtle fiddled with the remote until the familiar opening of
Tomorrow’s Promise
came up on the screen.  It looked like Kristin and her mother were at odds again while planning Kristin’s twentieth wedding.  At least, it seemed like Kristin’s twentieth wedding.  Myrtle watched until she found she could barely keep her eyes open and she gave in to a heavy sleep.

Chapter Sixteen

At some point in the middle of the night, Myrtle woke and realized she was still in her armchair and a cheery-voiced announcer was doing an infomercial in front of a very receptive studio audience.  She stumbled into the bedroom, not even bothering to undress as she climbed into her bed. 

The next morning, Myrtle cursed herself for not having taken an ibuprofen before returning to bed.  Getting out of the bed was going to be a nightmare. But the longer she lay in bed, the more agitated she felt.  It really had shaken her up to fall on that ramp.  She was now feeling every single muscle in her body hurt. Myrtle felt a twinge of doubt. 
Was
she too old to be investigating this murder? Everyone kept telling her that she was—maybe she should listen. She didn’t feel that way yesterday, but feeling as sore as she did right now…it made her rethink everything. If she were
this
sore from a minor fall, what would a major one be like? What if she broke her hip?  That would probably be enough for Red to finally persuade her to move over to Greener Pastures Retirement Home.

 Myrtle sighed.  It was all too dispiriting to even think about. She decided to wriggle to the side of the bed on her back, put her feet on the floor, and carefully sit up. 

She’d just managed to stand when her doorbell rang.  The number of visitors she was getting lately was extraordinary.  Myrtle almost decided to ignore the bell, but curiosity got the better of her.

She peered out the front window and saw Erma’s face leering back at her.  She jumped back from the window.  People could see through that white curtain?  Or was Erma simply trying to mess with her head?  Myrtle had half a mind not to open the door.  But Red had mentioned that Erma might have information about an argument between Tobin and Lucas.  She hesitated, and then slowly unlocked the door.

“Myrtle,” said Erma, sweeping inside and clutching her throat dramatically.  “I nearly had a heart attack—a real heart attack like my father used to have.  He had quadruple bypass surgery, did I tell you that?  I think I might have gotten his genes because sometimes I feel like my heart skips beats.”

Myrtle could have told her that mitral valve prolapse, which sounded very much like Erma’s ailment, had nothing to do with heart attacks, but she knew Erma wouldn’t listen to her.  She headed to her armchair with Erma crooning along behind her.

“So when I saw my poor dear old neighbor on the front page of the paper this morning, my heart skipped more than one beat.  It must have skipped fifty! I think I nearly kicked the bucket right there on my front walkway.”

Pity she’d recovered so completely.  Myrtle scowled.  “What? Front page of what?  Me?”

Erma had an expression of horrified delight on her face.  “You mean you don’t know?  Could you not?  Is that possible? Oh, but that’s right—your paper was still on the front walk.”

“It’s not only possible, it’s true.” Myrtle struggled out of the chair.  “Excuse me while I retrieve my paper.”

“I brought it for you.”  Erma looked vaguely around her, then snapped her fingers and reached into her shiny patent-leather pocketbook.  “Here it is.”

Myrtle snatched it away from her and gazed in horror at the headline. 
Bradley Matriarch Tumbles Down Library Stairs,
by Kim McKenzie.

Erma was babbling on.  “Those young people, they keep on top of things, don’t they!  How did Kim hear about your fall when I didn’t know about it and I live right next door to you? I can see you’re all right, thank goodness, although that’s a nasty purple bruise on your arm.”

Myrtle’s arm started throbbing on cue.

“It reminds me of a bruise I got one time when I ran into a stop sign.  You know how the town was real lackadaisical about stop signs for a while.  Then they put one up out of the blue, and I was taking my usual stroll and ran smack into it.  Bruised me up real good.  The bruise was blue, then it turned sort of a green, then it was….”

Myrtle was desperate not to hear the details of Erma’s collision with the road sign. She interrupted, “I didn’t fall down the stairs.  I was pushed down the ramp.” She recognized the mulish tone in her voice, but couldn’t stop herself.  That silly cub reporter had it all wrong. It was most annoying to be thought of as the kind of old lady who was sloppy enough to pitch down some stairs.

Erma’s rodent-like eyes got as large as they could get.  “Did you hit your head when you fell?”  Erma was never one for subtlety. 

 “I did
not
.  I’m not imagining this, Erma. I felt a hand at my back and I was pushed.”

“Well then.”  Erma seemed abruptly at a loss for words.  But that lasted only nanoseconds.  “Why do you think you were pushed?”