Pretty is as Pretty Dies (A Myrtle Clover Mystery) (8 page)

Elaine shook her head in amazement over Kitty's trials with
Tiny. "They don't even share the same interests. She's always at the
church, volunteering with one thing or another. And Tiny wouldn't
know where the church was if he didn't mow the grass there. I take
it back-I did see him there a couple of Easters ago."

Myrtle nodded. "He pulled at his collar and tie like he was on a
short leash."

They sat in silence for a minute, reflecting on Tiny. Then Elaine
said curiously, "By the way, have you met that new neighbor of
ours yet?"

"Who ... Miles Standish?" asked Myrtle sourly.

"What?" Now Elaine was looking at Myrtle with concern. "He
was a Pilgrim, Myrtle. Anyway, have you met the guy? He looks
pretty cute for ... an older man."

Myrtle gave her a pained look and didn't deign to answer, leaving Elaine to rummage through her mind for inoffensive conversation topics as she sped home.

That night, Elaine said to Red, "Your mom is playing detective, you
know."

Red groaned and pressed his hands against his eyes. "Shoot. I
thought she might be messing around with my case. She was
pumping Perkins for information today when he was trying to
question her." He shook his head.

"When she was at my book club today-"

"What? Miss Book Snob went to your book club? I didn't think
she'd lower herself."

Elaine knitted her brows in irritation. "Well, she went. And
while she was there, she cornered Kitty Kirk in the powder room
for at least twenty-five minutes. I'm sure she was asking her questions about the case."

Red swore.

"She must have found out something, too, because she mentioned going by the police station tomorrow morning"

"Perkins will think she's a nut!" said Red. "I've got to figure out
some kind of diversion for her ... some kind of red herring or tangent to send her on. Or else pin a note on her back, warning the
general public to steer clear of her and her nosiness. I'll talk to Perkins about it tomorrow. We'll cook something up to keep her busy
for a while."

RED TRUDGED INTO THE courthouse, and pushed the old wooden
door of the police station open with his foot, sloshing hot coffee
on himself in the process. Cursing, he grabbed a handful of tissues
off his desk and dabbed at the spots. He tossed the coffee-stained
tissues in the direction of the wastebasket, missed, and cursed
again.

Perkins thought for a minute, eyeing Red's coffee-stained shirt
and flustered manner. Red had great perspective on the people in
Bradley and good general intuition-when he wasn't so preoccupied. He could use his help on the case. "Something going on,
Red?"

Red plopped down on the old vinyl sofa in the station lobby,
taking a big gulp of his coffee. "Elaine told me last night that my
mother has been going around asking a lot of questions about the
case. And she was trying to get information from you when you
were questioning her, too. I guess she thinks she can save the town
single-handedly from its vicious killer."

Perkins said in a thoughtful tone, "I don't remember your mom
being all that interested, besides just normal curiosity. Murders
don't happen every day here, after all. She's probably just going
after the latest gossip is all."

"I'd like to believe that's all it is. But you don't really know my
mother."

He stopped talking when the door to the station pushed open
and Myrtle walked in. Red rolled his eyes at Perkins in exasperation and walked behind the desk, fumbling with some papers to let
Perkins handle their visitor.

Myrtle had thought out different ways to approach the whole
Benton Chambers situation. Although the thought of plowing into
the police station and bellowing out the identity of the killer was
certainly tempting, she thought she'd play her cards better than
that. She wanted to really impress Red and Lieutenant Perkinsrandom information from a muumuued woman in a powder
room wouldn't properly showcase her analytical skills. She decided
she would go to the police station and give them a few of her other
observations. See how they reacted. Then she'd really knock them
out when she handed them the name of the murderer on a silver
platter.

"Mrs. Clover," said Perkins in a cautious voice. "Did you forget
to include something in your statement the other day?"

"Nothing I forgot, Lt. Perkins. But I did want to tell you something I'd noticed and see if you can get to the bottom of it."

Perkins pulled out a small notepad and poised his pencil over
the paper. "What did you notice?"

"Kitty Kirk is troubled about something."

Lieutenant Perkins drew his notebook closer and poised his
pen. "Did she confide in you, Mrs. Clover?"

Myrtle nodded sagely. "Oh yes. But I could tell she was incredibly preoccupied even before she spoke to me. She said it's because
she thought y'all considered her a probable suspect, but there's
more to it than that. Her makeup, you know."

"Makeup," Perkins repeated slowly. Red snickered in the background.

Myrtle wagged her finger at him. "Not just her makeup. The
muumuu, too."

"Mmm-hmm"

"She usually takes so much care over her appearance you know.
Nails. Hair. Cute clothes. A little too cutesy for me, but wellkempt."

Perkins closed his eyes for a moment and Myrtle gave him a
sharp look. "You should get more sleep, Detective. Anyway, as I
was saying, her appearance has really taken a dive lately. Something is on her mind ... she knows something about Parke Stockard's murder."

Perkins tuned back in. "Instead of merely being upset by Mrs.
Stockard's murder?"

Myrtle snorted. "No one was upset by Parke Stockard's murder.
You haven't been paying attention. And it occurred to me that
Parke Stockard must have been troubled, too."

Perkins winced as he asked, "How did you draw that conclusion?"

"The tag on her clothes." As Perkins stared blankly at her, she
leaned in closely. "She had her knit shirt on inside out!" She looked
at him with the same amazement she'd felt when she'd noticed it. She was about to say, "And wait till I tell you what Kitty saw at the
church," when she glimpsed Detective Lieutenant Perkins' face.
Well. She'd just keep that little tidbit to herself then if she wasn't
going to be taken seriously.

Perkins closed his notebook. "Thanks for your help, Mrs. Clover. I'll be sure to have a talk with Kitty Kirk." He imagined the
beginning of his interview with her and sighed. "Now Mrs. Kirk,
about these tacky muumuus... "

Perkins disappeared into one of the small offices off the lobby.
Red stood up and walked over to her. "Finished giving Perkins all
your vital information, Mama?" he asked.

She shook her cane at Red threateningly. "As a matter of fact, I
didn't tell him everything. Although after your reaction to it, I'm
keeping my other news to myself." She started moving slowly toward the door, leaning on her cane as she walked.

"Now, that's a bad idea. For one thing, you shouldn't even have
any news or information relating to this case. For another, if you
do hear anything, you should immediately turn it over to the police. What have you heard?"

The urge to impress Red with her detecting abilities warred
with the urge to keep all her findings secret to give herself an edge.
The need to show off became too strong. "I ... just happened to be
talking with Kitty Kirk at book club-"

"Because you're such a regular at book club, aren't you?" Red
asked in a tight voice.

"Anyway, she said that she'd seen Benton Chambers at the
church that morning. I think it was when she was pulling into the
church parking lot for the United Methodist Women meeting."

Red put a hand on her arm, stopping her slow progress out of
the police station. "Mama, she was sure about that? She saw Benton
Chambers at the church that morning?"

"Well, she saw a big-boned man with a crutch. It must have
been Benton."

"And she saw him when exactly?"

"Well, it must have been right before I got to the church and
discovered the body, so he could have run in, bopped her on the
head, and left really fast before I walked in and found the body.
And Kitty went on over to the dining hall for the meeting."

"A figure. With big-bones and a crutch. Right before you discovered the body," Red said.

Myrtle nodded.

Red hooted out loud. "Mama! Kitty Kirk is blind as a bat. And
batty to boot. She saw you. Going into the church before you discovered Parke Stockard's body. She thought your cane was his
crutch! You were the big-boned man!"

A red flush crept over Myrtle's face and she jerked open the
heavy police station door, slamming it shut behind her on Red's
raucous laughter. He opened the door back up and poked his head
out. "Sorry, Mama. I shouldn't have laughed. Hey, if you want to
go ahead and do your grocery shopping, I'll run you back home
afterwards. Deal?"

Myrtle was divided between wanting to snub him and needing
his help. She needed to get milk this trip and walking home with
the gallon jug wasn't an option. "Okay," she said grudgingly.

"I'll give you a twenty-five-minute head start before I come
over. And I might need a couple of things there, too, so I'll go inside to meet up with you."

Red walked back into the station and Perkins said, "You're
right, Red. She's nosing around. I did invite her to let me know if
she remembered anything from the crime scene yesterday. But this
was more like information she'd gotten by gossiping. "

"She'll end up being the next victim. The murderer won't like
all her snooping."

"Oh, I don't know if she'd end up being murdered, Red. But I
could use your help on this case. You're totally distracted this
morning, worrying about your mom." Red knew all the suspects
personally and could be a real asset with his insights ... if Perkins
could get his mind on the case.

"We need to find something for her to do," Perkins said. "It
doesn't look like she's going to just give up. If we can give her a red
herring to send her on a wild goose chase, then maybe we can give
her a harmless direction for her investigation."

"I'll try anything at this point. I just can't understand why she's
trying to take over my job."
"

I don't think she's looking at it that way," answered Perkins
slowly. "I think she wants to do something important. Something
significant. Maybe something that will earn your respect and show
everyone that she's not just some doddering old lady."

"Or maybe the voices are telling her to do it," grumbled Red.
Then he laughed. "No, she's not fluffy. If someone calls her 'sweetheart,' she'll snap their head off. But tell me more about your master plan to divert Mama down the bunny trail."

"If your mother could overhear us while we talked about an
`important lead,' we could give her a red herring. Somewhere safe,
but out a little ways in the country. Got any ideas?"

Red puffed out his cheeks and thought for a minute. He
laughed. "How about Crazy Dan's? He sells tires, boiled peanuts,
old car parts. He's out in the boondocks, too. We could get her out
of the way for a while, then. It's hard to understand a word the guy
says, too. Might even necessitate a return trip"

"How is she going to get out there, though? She doesn't have a
car anymore, does she?"

Red smiled. "That's the beauty of the plan. She'd have to borrow a car from somebody ... she does still have a license. That'll
take up even more time."

"Is she still okay to drive?" asked Perkins with a little concern.
"It sounds like it's been a while since she's been behind the wheel
of a car."

"There again, it'll work out perfectly. She drives so slow that
this will end up being a day trip."

"How are we going to let her overhear us?"

"Shouldn't be hard! She's gotten so obsessed with detective
work, she's probably got the police station bugged." Red rubbed
his eyes and said, "She's at the grocery store now and I'm supposed
to pick her up there in a few minutes and run her back home. We
could arrange a discussion over there within her earshot."