Myrtle phoned Miles early to fill him in. He came right over and poured himself a cup of coffee. He and Myrtle sat down at her kitchen table.
Miles looked morose. “A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.”
“Would you stop quoting Wanda?” asked Myrtle, glaring at him.
“I thought I was quoting Aesop,” said Miles. He gave a big sigh. “I’m sorry about Louvenia. I rather liked her, even though she could be a bit hyper,” he said. “But at least your cooking is off the hook.”
“My cooking was never on the hook. Food doesn’t make people appear intoxicated.” Myrtle sighed. “What an abrupt and tragic ending to our cooking class.”
Miles said, “And I suppose Louvenia isn’t our killer, after all. Considering she was murdered, too.”
“It would seem that way, but remember that we’ve got to look past what things seem and find out the truth. It could be that someone knew that Louvenia had killed Chester and murdered her out of revenge,” said Myrtle.
Miles snorted. “And who loved Chester enough to kill someone out of revenge? It seems like he rubbed everyone the wrong way. Hattie was probably closest to him and she’s hardly devastated by his death.”
“That’s true,” said Myrtle thoughtfully. “It looks as if we’re back to the drawing board. Are you sure you didn’t notice anything unusual at my party?”
“I noticed a lot that was unusual at your party,” said Miles. “That sauce, for one.”
“You know what I mean.” Myrtle glared at him.
Miles said, “I thought it was unusual for Louvenia to be drunk at a party, also, but we’ve already gotten to the bottom of that mystery. I thought it was unusual that Hattie was in attendance and that she was relatively pleasant. She always seems sort of hostile and sullen to me.”
Myrtle considered this as she bent down to rub Pasha, who had suddenly jumped through the open kitchen window and was now rubbing against her legs. “Maybe Hattie was just happy to get a break from the funeral planning and estate stuff for a while.”
“Or maybe she was looking for an opportunity to murder Louvenia,” said Miles dryly.
“Good point. Who else was at my party that could be considered a surprise guest?” asked Myrtle. “Felix never misses a chance to hobnob with local voters, so no surprises there.”
“Amos,” said Miles. “He practically invited himself to your dinner party.”
“That’s true. He was decidedly hinting at it. And no matter what he says, I can’t believe that he was as laid back about losing his health, his wife, his job, and his home as he claims. Maybe he angled for an invitation so that he’d have a chance to kill Louvenia,” said Myrtle.
“Yes, but why Louvenia? She had nothing to do with his accident.”
“But she might have known something about Chester’s death. Maybe she returned to the classroom and saw something ... or realized later that something she’d seen or heard was significant. And we know Louvenia’s proclivity for blackmail. She probably figured it was an excellent fundraising opportunity for that new restaurant she wanted,” said Myrtle.
Miles sighed. “I was actually starting to look forward to that restaurant. Louvenia could really cook. Okay, so the most unexpected guests were Hattie and Amos.”
“Which doesn’t really mean anything. We’re just guessing. Are you positive you didn’t see anything?” demanded Myrtle.
“I didn’t see anyone pouring antifreeze in anyone else’s drink,” said Miles coldly. “And, if you remember, I was fairly busy scraping melted plastic off the stove. Are you sure that you didn’t see anything? It is your house.”
“I was putting out one fire after another,” said Myrtle with irritation.
“Yes. Literally,” said Miles.
The doorbell rang, startling Pasha who bounded back through the open window.
Myrtle walked briskly to the front door and peered out the front window. She pulled open the door.
“Bonnie!” she said, smiling as she held the door open wide. “Come inside. Miles and I are just having some coffee in the kitchen. Won’t you join us?”
Bonnie looked suddenly very anxious, twisting the strap of her purse in her hands. “Oh, I don’t know, Miss Myrtle. I think I’m okay. But I’ll sit down with y’all for a few minutes if you don’t mind.”
Bonnie sat awkwardly down in one of Myrtle’s kitchen chairs. She looked helplessly at both of them and then burst into tears.
Myrtle was alarmed. “Here, here ... don’t do that. Oh, for heaven’s sake. Miles, go grab the tissues, will you?”
Miles, eager for an errand, swiftly headed in the direction of Myrtle’s bathroom.
Bonnie grabbed the tissues out of his hands as soon as he returned and loudly blew her nose. “I’m so sorry! I just—I heard someone in the grocery store saying that Louvenia had died. I wondered if you knew if it was true and if you knew anything about it. I know she wasn’t in class, but I had no idea it was so serious.” Her voice broke over the last couple of words.
Myrtle said briskly, “Unfortunately, it’s true. Louvenia is dead. What’s more, it appears that it wasn’t a natural death.”
Bonnie’s red eyes grew huge. “Not natural? But you don’t mean ... she wasn’t ... she wasn’t murdered, was she?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Myrtle.
Bonnie said, “First Chester, now Louvenia?” She flushed and said in a low voice, “I can sort of understand about Chester. I don’t think he treated people very nicely. But Louvenia was always so nice to everybody. Who would want to kill her?”
Myrtle said delicately, “We don’t exactly know. But we do know that it’s possible that Louvenia knew something about Chester’s death. She was the kind of person who liked to know things.”
Bonnie’s eyes opened wide in alarm. “You think she saw whoever it was that killed Chester?” She shivered. “Miss Myrtle, do you think that Red is going to be talking to ... well, everybody in the cooking class again? Does he think it’s one of us?”
Myrtle said in a soothing voice, as if talking to a skittish animal, “He’s just trying to get information and figure out what’s going on, that’s all. Did you notice anything odd at my dinner party the other night?”
Bonnie turned red and looked confused.
Miles said, “Aside from the food.”
Bonnie, if possible, turned even redder. “Oh! No, everything was fine. Was good! And I don’t know that I saw anything odd.”
“You were saying last time that you wondered if Hattie might have anything to do with Chester’s death,” said Myrtle.
Bonnie said in a rush, “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know that she was involved at all. And she was nice to me at your dinner. Asked me how I was liking cooking class.”
Miles said, “Was there anyone who was acting odd?”
Bonnie shifted uncomfortably and Myrtle said in an impatient voice, “You’re not testifying in court, Bonnie. You’re simply offering an opinion.”
Maybe it was the fact that Myrtle had taught Bonnie, but she suddenly stopped hemming and hawing and nodded her head. “Amos was acting weird,” she offered.
Myrtle and Miles exchanged a quick glance.
“In what way?” asked Miles with interest.
“I don’t know. He talked a lot more. He was ... lively. Just different. But he wasn’t the only one. Louvenia, of course.” Bonnie looked sad. “I knew something was wrong. I should have done something—taken her to the doctor. She wasn’t acting normal.”
“It was probably already too late,” said Miles. “I wouldn’t feel too guilty over it.”
Myrtle said, “Did you see anyone around Louvenia’s drink?”
Bonnie knit her brows in concentration. “Actually, I don’t think she had anything but water.”
Myrtle said, “It would have been a coffee cup. Everyone had coffee at the beginning of the evening.”
“That’s right. No, at least, I didn’t notice anything. But everybody was kind of milling around and talking to everybody else. Oh! And eating your tasty hors d’oeuvres.”
Miles hid a smile and Myrtle gritted her teeth. Her hors d’oeuvres would have been much better than Erma’s.
“Now what?” asked Miles after Bonnie left. “Amos?”
“Amos, for sure,” said Myrtle grimly. “Especially now that Bonnie mentioned he was acting a little off.”
“And we think he was acting off. Angling for invitations to your dinner party?” Miles looked positively flummoxed at the idea.
Myrtle glared at him. “Trying to get an invitation to one of my dinner parties is hardly surprising, Miles. It doesn’t mean that the only reason he wanted to be there was because he wanted to murder Louvenia.”
“Well, someone wanted to murder Louvenia. No one casually attends dinner parties carrying a bottle of antifreeze in his pocket,” said Miles.
Myrtle opened her mouth to reply when her phone rang. “I’m so popular today,” she muttered. “Hello?”
“Miz Myrtle? Yer lawn look awful.”
“Good morning to you, too, Dusty. I wish you took such concern over my lawn the rest of the year. Perhaps I should start putting a sign in the grass that says ‘mowing courtesy of Dusty.’”
Dusty grunted. “It don’t usually look this bad.”
“Well, I have some good news for you. Red ran by last night and said that the mower is ready at the shop. The only problem is that there’s been another murder and he doesn’t have time to pick it up.”
Puddin would have immediately latched onto the fact that there had been a murder and asked a million questions, offered a million guesses as to the killer, and then would have started incessant gossiping. Dusty, on the other hand, merely grunted again.
“Can I pick ‘er up then?” he asked.
“Red said he’d call the shop and authorize you to get it. And I’d appreciate it if you could take care of my yard first, since we’re funding the mower.”
“Whut about ... that stuff. Yonder.”
“You mean the yard art? It’s all right—it’s supposed to be an impermanent display,” said Myrtle.
There was silence on the other end as Dusty tried to dissect and digest her sentence. Perhaps, judging from the length of the silence, he was actually diagramming it.
Myrtle said impatiently, “I mean that you can put the gnomes and tools back in the shed.”
This time the grunt was more of a groan.
“And I’ll be sure to give you something extra for your trouble,” said Myrtle with yet another sigh.
She hung up the phone. “The nonsense that I have to deal with from that Dusty and Puddin.”
“Keeps you on your toes,” said Miles. “So we’re seeing Amos now? What’s our premise for going to the school when we don’t have class?”
“No premise. Just the truth.”
“That we’re snoopy senior citizens with too much time on our hands?” asked Miles.
Myrtle frowned at him. “No. That I’m an investigative reporter unraveling these mysteries.”
“Oh. That truth.”
In less than an hour, Myrtle and Miles were back at the school, talking to Amos.
Amos tilted his head to one side. “An investigative reporter. Ain’t that something?”
“It’s a very progressive paper,” said Myrtle airily. “They have no problem assigning tough projects to seniors.”
Miles snickered and Myrtle punched his toes unobtrusively with her cane. The truth was, of course, that Sloan was deeply committed to assigning Myrtle to the Helpful Hints column, but there was no reason for Amos to know this.
Amos shrugged. “So what is it you want to know? I don’t think I really know anything much at all.”
Myrtle said, “That’s where you’re probably wrong. You see, sometimes we know things without really knowing that we know them. Let’s start out with what you saw at the dinner party. Did you see anything unusual?”
Amos leaned against his mop, thinking about this for a minute. “Well, I was confused about how Louvenia was so drunk. I didn’t even see her drinking any alcohol.” He paused. “I didn’t really see hardly any alcohol being drunk, period.”
Myrtle said briskly, “That’s because the party was all about the food and not the drinks. You didn’t see anyone lingering around Louvenia a lot? Anyone put anything into her drink?”
Amos frowned. “You mean, like, poison her? You’re saying she was murdered, then? It wasn’t that she had too much to drink?”
Miles shook his head.
Amos gave a low whistle. He absently pushed the mop around the floor for a few moments. “Okay. I did see that young woman talking to her a lot. The cool one.”
“Hattie?” asked Myrtle.
“Yeah, that’s it. She was talking to Louvenia for a real long time. I thought that was kinda weird. Louvenia and her couldn’t have had anything in common, you know?” asked Amos.
Myrtle nodded. “That’s for sure. It isn’t as if they could be comparing tattoo parlors or anything. What could they possibly have to talk about?”
Miles cleared his throat. “There is the fact that Louvenia was Hattie’s teacher. They might have been talking about cooking. And there’s also the fact that Louvenia was probably the only person at the party that Hattie felt like she really knew.”
“Point taken. What else did you see, Amos?”
Amos shrugged and Myrtle said in an encouraging voice. “You know, you’re really more observant than you think.”
He closed his eyes for a minute as if he was picturing the party in his head. “Felix. I thought at the time that Felix sure was in a hurry to take Louvenia home. Didn’t you think so?”
Miles said, “At the time, I was just relieved that Louvenia was leaving before she embarrassed herself—and us in the process.”
Myrtle sighed. “And I admit to being concerned that Louvenia might be sick on my carpets. I was glad to see her go, too. But now that I think about it, Felix did seem awfully eager to get Louvenia out of there.”
“He was being helpful,” said Miles. “I remember thinking that he was risking having the very nice interior of his car messed up by taking Louvenia home. It seemed like a sacrifice.”
Miles would notice the car.
Myrtle said, “That’s the beauty of the plan. Felix did something that looked helpful and kind. But maybe he did it to remove Louvenia before we all realized that Louvenia wasn’t acting normally and needed help.”
Amos said darkly, “If he did that, then he’s a very wicked man.”
“I can’t see it,” said Miles. “I’ve only seen him as someone doing his civic duty in every way.”
“Besides, he and Chester were supposed to be such good friends,” said Myrtle.
Amos cocked a skeptical eyebrow.
“They played football together in high school and everything,” said Myrtle.
Amos gave a decisive shake of his head. “Nope.”
Myrtle frowned. “Nope, what?”
“I tried to talk to Felix during a break. Small talk, you know. The man knows nothing about football,” said Amos.
Miles said, “Maybe he’s just someone who doesn’t follow scores or doesn’t have a favorite team.”
“No, I mean, he doesn’t even understand the game. Not even the basics,” said Amos emphatically.
Myrtle and Miles glanced at each other.
Then Myrtle said, “On a different subject, you’ve worked with Louvenia for some time, right?”
Amos colored a little. “I wouldn’t say worked with. I’d say that we worked in the same building. But yes—she’s taught these classes every semester for some time now.”
“What was your opinion of her, in general?” asked Myrtle.
Amos rubbed the side of his nose. “She was always nice to me. Kind of chatty sometimes, though, when I had work to do.”
Miles seemed to think the last sentence was directed at him and he started making ‘time to go’ motions. Myrtle, on the other hand, held her ground. “Anything else?”
Amos sighed. “Yeah. Hate to speak bad of the dead, or whatever the saying is. But she was kind of sneaky, Louvenia was. I don’t think she was completely honest. That might surprise you to hear, since she seemed so professional and all.”
Myrtle shook her head. “No, it doesn’t surprise me at all. Why do you think she was sneaky?”
“I caught her one time taking an expensive mixer out of the classroom. One of those that probably cost hundreds of dollars. And that was school property, not hers,” said Amos.
“Did you confront her about it?” asked Myrtle.
“Sure did. Didn’t want anyone thinking that I took it. Told her to put it back up. She was a real sourpuss about it, too, and real defensive. She was only borrowing it, she said. It made me wonder if Louvenia was taking other stuff, too. Or what kind of person she really was,” said Amos. “Oh, and one other thing I remembered. Might as well tell you, since you’re working on the story or whatnot. The day of that first cooking class, Chester and Felix were arguing. I was cleaning around the corner and they couldn’t see me. Chester sounded all cocky like he usually did, but Felix sounded real mad. Something to do with yard signs.”
Myrtle said, “Someone else mentioned this. They were talking about campaign signs. I’ve seen them all over town, supporting Felix’s run Was Felix angry that Chester wasn’t supporting him?”
Amos shrugged. “I couldn’t hear much of it, but that could be true.”
Miles frowned. “But Felix was the last one to class that day. You’re saying he was arguing with Chester before class even started?”
Amos said, “Yeah. What’s more, Chester said something else. Something like ‘you better calm down or else I’ll tell everybody about you-know-who.’ Then Felix stormed past me and left the building. I guess to cool off.”
Miles said, “Then he’s quite the actor. When he came back in, he was all sunshine and smiles. Even to Chester.”
Myrtle nodded. “A politician through and through.” She paused. “You know, Amos, this is a lot of stuff to have suddenly remembered.”
Amos smiled at her. “I guess I didn’t care as much about who killed Chester. I was just glad Chester was gone. But now? I dunno. I figured I shouldn’t keep stuff to myself. After all, maybe the cops are more suspicious over innocent people since they don’t know all the facts.”
Myrtle said, “I’ve got one more question for you, Amos, and then we’ll leave you to your mopping. Although I was delighted to have you come to my dinner party, I must admit that I was a little surprised that you wanted to come. After all, you weren’t a member of the class. And although you expressed some interest in the class and in cooking, you didn’t seem all that interested in the food I served.”
Miles gave that odd, muffled coughing sound again and Myrtle glared at him. “Your allergies have got to be controlled, Miles. Anyway, as I was saying, I was wondering if you had some sort of ulterior motive for coming to my little dinner.”
Amos turned bright red. He looked down at his mop as if it had suddenly become very interesting. “Bonnie,” he said, finally.
“Bonnie?” asked Myrtle, very puzzled.
He nodded, glancing up at Myrtle before glancing back down again at the mop. “She reminds me a lot of my ex-wife. In all the good ways,” he added in a hurry. “I love her smile and that dimple of hers. But here at the school she always ran off during breaks or right after class and I never really got the chance to do more than say hi to her. I thought, if I saw her outside of school, I might have more of a chance to get to know her a little. You see, I saw a horoscope directed to me in the newspaper. Said to seize my chance. Figured it made sense to try to see Bonnie at your party.”
Miles said, “And then you ended up at a very unusual dinner party.”
“Yes. And I think I probably came across as real pushy or weird or something because I was trying so hard.” Amos rubbed his forehead in frustration.
Myrtle crossed her fingers unobtrusively and said, “I’m sure Bonnie didn’t think so. And maybe there’ll be other opportunities later on for you to meet up with her. It’s a small town.”
Amos said sadly, “I’d even call and try to ask her out, but I don’t have any of her information. Or even her last name.”
Myrtle beamed at him. “She happens to be a member of my book club. I’ve got her number right here in my phone.”
“That seems kind of pushy, too,” said Amos, looking anxious.
Myrtle said, “Well then, I’ve got her email address. Just send her a quick email and see what happens.”
Amos smiled at her as she handed him a scrap of paper with Bonnie’s email and phone number on it. “Thanks, Miss Myrtle.”