Pretty is as Pretty Dies (A Myrtle Clover Mystery) (2 page)

Parke vowed to do something about the hapless church volunteer's warped ideas on flower arranging. Scavenging the roadsides
for the altar arrangements was not going to work. Good Lord, next
she'd be sticking Queen Anne's lace in Mason jars with chickweed
filler. Dumping the weedy bouquet in a trash bag, Parke pulled out
roses from her canvas tote and rapidly positioned them in a heavy
crystal vase.

Intent on fixing the immediate crisis of the unsuitable arrangement and the long-term problem of the locals' ignorance, Parke
didn't notice the sanctuary doors open. A harsh voice caught her
attention.

"You!" Parke said scornfully. And then she picked the last fight of
her life-thirty minutes later, pretty Parke Stockard was dead ...

IT WAS A WARM, but not yet muggy, seven a.m. on what would become a blistering summer day. Sensible, elderly citizens of Bradley,
North Carolina, were contentedly puttering about before the heat
took a turn into truly oppressive territory. They plucked tomatoes
off their backyard vines for lunch, refilled feeders for cardinals and
bluebirds, wrestled with the complexities of the daily crossword,
or leisurely munched bowls of Grape Nuts under humming
screened-porch fans. Myrtle Clover could not be included among
this placid part of the populace. An early-morning phone call had
fired her up into a froth. That blasted Parke Stockard.

An unwelcome glimpse of herself in a shiny, copper kitchen
pot revealed an Einstein-like image scowling back at her. She patted down her wispy poof of hair into a semblance of order and
squinted at the rooster clock hanging on her kitchen wall. No, it
wasn't too early to call Elaine. Myrtle's toddler grandson functioned admirably as Elaine's alarm clock. What did it matter that he preferred watching the Teletubbies at five-thirty a.m.? In his
baby head, everyone should be eager to watch Laa-Laa wrangle her
big, yellow ball from Dipsy's clutches.

Elaine answered the phone with a weary hello. The early mornings must be hitting her pretty hard. Her voice was gravelly, like
she'd swallowed half of Jack's sandbox.

"Parke Stockard is bad news, Elaine. Bad news. The whole town
is riled up about her. And let me tell you what she's done to me."

Elaine was, really, trying to listen to her mother-in-law. Nine
years younger than Myrtle's forty-five-year-old son, Red, Elaine
thought of Myrtle more as a surrogate grandmother. This meant
Myrtle didn't get on Elaine's nerves as much as she did on Red's.

Ordinarily, multi-tasking was Elaine's forte, but with the cordless phone crunched between her ear and her shoulder as she
cleaned up Cheerios her son had cheerfully tossed onto the linoleum, she couldn't fully focus on the phone call. "Urn. Really?"
Elaine stretched to reach the crumbs on the other side of the chair
and felt much older than thirty-six.

Myrtle paused for effect. This effect would have been more imposing if Elaine had been able to see Myrtle draw her octogenarian
but sturdy frame to its full six feet. "She just finagled more space
for her Bradley Bugle column."

Elaine pulled the pepper shaker out of Jack's chubby two-yearold fist, prompting a howl of protest. She winced at the noise.
"Why is that a problem for you?"

"Because now my helpful hints column is being cut by half!
Sloan Jones, the editor, called me this morning first thing to let me
know. That coward! Probably hoped I'd still be snoozing in bed and
he'd get my answering machine. This town needs my helpful hints a lot more than that crud Parke Stockard spews on paper. That pointless Posing Prettily with Parke column. Wretched woman." She
paused as Jack's howling reached her ears. "Are you besieged? Is Jack
making that racket? What are you doing to my darling grandson?"

Elaine jogged toward the back of the house, the darling grandson in hot pursuit. Taking refuge in the master bedroom, she
yanked the door shut, locking it quickly, and brushed her black
bob out of her eyes with a yellow latex-gloved hand. Elaine hoped
Jack, now flinging his small body angrily against the door, would
soon discover that the Teletubbies perma-played on the den TV.
Looking down, she discovered she still clutched the pepper shaker.
She set it down on a dresser and plucked off the latex gloves.
"Nothing. He ... it's time for his nap as soon as I get off the phone
with you. He got up at four-thirty for some reason today and so
it's already naptime." She cut off her own hysterical laugh. Elaine
was a morning person, but in no way interpreted four-thirty as
qualifying as morning.

"Uh..." Elaine rounded up her scattered thoughts. "I think her
column is called Lovely Living with Parke, Myrtle. Why would
Sloan cut your articles? Everyone raves about them."

Myrtle plopped down at her living room desk and opened a
computer file, glaring at the copy. "So my column has been kind of
wacky the last couple of weeks. But you wouldn't believe the tips
people mailed in to me. I made do with that tip about Ivory soap
under fitted sheets relieving leg cramps." Myrtle snorted.

"And the tip about stopping nosebleeds," Elaine helpfully reminded Myrtle. She noticed with relief that the screaming had
trailed off and prayed his little feet were plodding off to the den.

"Oh right. That old wives' tale about dropping a set of cold keys
down the neck of the afflicted." Myrtle morosely read the offending
article off the computer screen.

"Sloan thinks I'm dabbling in the occult. But they weren't my
tips, after all."

Elaine cautiously opened the bedroom door and peeked down
the hall. No demented toddlers lurking there, only their sullen,
teenaged French exchange student, stumbling sleepily out of the
guest bedroom. Elaine apologized in rusty French for Jack's eruption during Jean-Marc's quality sleep time. Unfortunately for
Elaine, her French apology translated as, "I'm happy Jack is a sunny
goat." Her foreign guest's inexplicable eye-roll mystified Elaine.

Myrtle added some more sugar to her coffee cup. "Sloan has a
crush on Parke, too."

"Well, she's a beautiful woman."

"With hard eyes. Hard, beady little eyes. And that face that just
screams WASP. Her nose is pointy enough to pop a balloon. Parke
is pushy, bossy, and hateful to everybody."

"She's slender."

"Bony," answered Myrtle.

"And she's in great shape. She must exercise every day."

"She power walks. She pumps her arms way up and down like
a chicken."

"It's supposed to be a great alternative to jogging, Myrtle."

"Well, she looks like she's trying to hightail it to the nearest
bathroom."

"Silly or not, it obviously works for her. She's very fit," said
Elaine wistfully.

"And I'm not sure I'm buying this portrayal of Parke Stockard
as evil incarnate. For one thing, she spends a heck of a lot of money
to renovate the church. Word is she's funding a new education
wing for the Sunday School."

Myrtle snorted. "A desperate and ultimately futile plot to save
her immortal soul. Take it from someone who's vastly old and immensely wise, that Parke Stockard qualifies as truly wicked. She
enjoys getting people's goats."

The hurricane of howling and thumping against the bedroom
door resumed. Elaine wasn't following Myrtle's sudden livestock
references and was trying to determine if Parke Stockard was still
the subject of the conversation without revealing that she'd not
been listening attentively the last few sentences.

Myrtle obsessed over minutiae in her life. But so did Elaine,
whose ponderous problem for the week was Jack's sudden ability to
remove lids from sippy cups. Elaine thought it safest to pick up on
the last thread of the conversation that she could remember. "Sloan
wouldn't cut your column because of a crush, Myrtle."

"And Parke's become the Bugle's biggest advertiser, which apparently obligates Sloan to be her slave for life. Some free press.
Just because she's an all-powerful developer and Realtor. He thinks
she's a big-shot since she used to write a society column in New
York. Who cares?" Myrtle's gusty sigh cannoned through the phone
line, making Elaine cringe and pull the receiver off her ear. "That
column kept me busy."

Elaine said hastily, "Well, now you'll have your church work
keeping you busy, won't you?" All Red needed was his octogenarian mother getting bored again. As police chief of Bradley, he took
his law and order very seriously.

Myrtle's voice was steely. "What church work is that?"

"The Altar Guild and United Methodist Women. Red mentioned it this morning."

There was a pregnant pause before Myrtle said, "I didn't sign
up for Altar Guild. And certainly not for United Methodist
Women. Bunch of old biddies. Did Red sign me up?"

Elaine would have recognized the danger signs in her motherin-law's tone if Jack hadn't continued his noisy vigil outside her
bedroom door. "Hmm."

Myrtle fumed. "Parke Stockard was the best candidate for Bradley, North Carolina's `Most Likely to be Murdered' But Red may
have beaten her out."

Josh Tucker watched as his boss at the Bradley Bugle, Sloan Jones,
slammed his telephone down. "Good God," groaned Sloan, clutching his head. "Deliver me from conversations with Myrtle Clover."

"Still griping about her column getting cut?"

"Well, it's not like I cut it out. I just reduced it. It was getting
damn weird, anyway, with all the nosebleed tips lately."

"What's behind cutting my piece in the last edition? It wasn't
weird at all," said josh.

"Sorry about that," Sloan said. "Fine writing, as usual. Had to
squeeze in Parke's column, though. Her full-page weekly ad took
our bookkeeping out of the red. Thank God she pays in advance."

Josh's perfunctory smile disappeared in the deep lines in his
face. Sloan went on, "And she's not a bad writer, either. Imaginetwo former New York writers on the Bugle staffl"

Josh lifted a beefy hand and smoothed it over his high forehead.
There were times he missed New York. He'd expected his hometown
to change while he was gone, but hadn't noticed any changes at all.
Chili dogs were still 99 cents at Bo's Diner. The Bradley Library
hadn't circulated any new titles since 1985 and Miss Hudgins still
shushed the patrons. The Bradley Bugle still considered bridge games
and golden anniversaries major local news stories. His mother still
fussed over him and brought him watery chicken noodle soup
whenever he sniffled. Thomas Wolfe had obviously never visited
Bradley, North Carolina, if he thought you could never go home
again.

"Parke sure gives the Bugle some pizzazz." Sloan dreamily reflected on Parke Stockard's finer qualities, basking again in the radiant smile she'd blindsided him with early that morning. Sloan
had carefully combed over his wispy hair today. This task involved
locating his comb-a major undertaking, considering it had been
misplaced for weeks.

Josh flushed. Parke's expensive floral perfume still cloyingly invaded the newsroom, lingering in his nostrils and firing up his migraines. The scent conjured up Parke's condescending smiles. "Just
as long as the copy cutting stops there. We've made an award-winning newspaper, Sloan. The Bradley Bugle is starting to get some
real attention from the public ... and not just the town of Bradley.
We don't need her interference."

Sloan smiled fondly at the large, pedestalled trophy of an oversized plumed pen that sat in a place of honor on his paper-congested
desk. "Yes, we've done well, haven't we?" Sloan beamed at Josh. His
jowly face fell when josh remained grim. Sloan pulled at his shirt collar. "Space is at a premium, you know. Parke's ad revenue is helping us out a lot, but we're not on a New York Times budget. Or even a
Charlotte Observer budget. Or even a-"

"Point taken. But there's got to be something else you can cut
back on. Rita's recipes?"

"I'd get reader hate mail"

"The horoscopes Maisy Perry makes up?"

"Josh, there're people who plan their whole day around those
things. There'll be pandemonium in the streets if Maisy doesn't
give them some guidance."