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They climbed into Miles’s car. “Back to your house, then?”
“Yes. I do need to get the story written, especially with Sloan running it on the front page tomorrow.”
Miles said, “Isn’t it a good thing Sloan has hired someone to handle the copyediting? You’ve complained about the issues in the paper for as long as I’ve known you. It’s obviously been a thorn in your side.”
Myrtle said, “The problem is that Imogen is a thorn in my side. I taught with her for a million years, and she had a talent for turning even the smallest thing into a nightmare. We had weekly staff meetings, and Imogen would ask questions about the plainest details. The meetings would go on for hours. Everyone wanted to kill her.”
“And yet she continued teaching, unscathed.”
Myrtle said, “Yes. Although no one could stand her. She liked to hear herself talk. It was most annoying.”
“You won’t have to have staff meetings with Imogen at the newspaper,” pointed out Miles helpfully.
“No, but it won’t make a difference. Seeing her name on the newspaper’s masthead will completely undo me every morning.”
Miles said, “You were already completely undone by the daily grammatical blunders. Perhaps this will end up being better.”
“It won’t be better unless I’m the one copyediting the newspaper.”
“I don’t understand why Sloan didn’t make you copyeditor in the first place,” said Miles slowly.
“I’ve been ruminating on it, and I believe I know why. He said it was because I was already too busy with the crime reporting. But I’m convinced it’s because I make him nervous.”
Miles said, “You’ve always seemed to enjoy making him nervous.”
“Yes, but it appears to be backfiring now.” Myrtle sighed. “Everything has to be complicated. Sloan wouldn’t listen to me when I tried dissuading him from using Imogen. I warned him she was a technophobe, and he said she was going to work in the newsroom with him. What I should have pointed out is, if there’s a late-breaking story, Imogen will have to travel to the newsroom to copyedit. That means Sloan will have to travel to the newsroom to unlock it and show her the article. It'll be horribly inconvenient.”
“It sounds as if Sloan has already made a decision.”
“Yes, it does seem that way,” said Myrtle reluctantly. “Perhaps I should focus my efforts in the other direction.”
“With Imogen.”
“That’s right. I’ll try to scare her off one way or another.”
Miles paused. “You could cook for her. Tell her, now that you’re colleagues again, you’ll bring over special treats for her every day.”
“How on earth will that help scare off Imogen?” asked Myrtle in exasperation.
Miles seemed to be trying to contain some sort of inconvenient emotion. “Well, the food would have to be awful, you see.”
“I don’t think I’d be able to make awful food. It would be too much of a stretch. And a waste of time, money, and food, besides. No, it’ll have to be something else.” She paused. “Unless I brought her a loaf of Elaine’s bread, of course, claiming it was mine. That would do it.”
“Poor Elaine,” said Miles.
“Yes. I do love Elaine as if she were my own child. I only wish she’d stop inflicting her horrid hobbies on us.”
Miles was silent, seeming deep in thought as they continued on their way to Myrtle’s house. Myrtle frowned. “What’s wrong, Miles? You’re not lovelorn over some woman, are you? Since it’s Valentine’s Day, maybe you should just send her a card.”
“I’m not lovelorn.” He seemed to be thinking of a good excuse for his mood. “I haven’t slept well the past couple of nights. That’s likely the problem.”
“You don’t want to fall asleep now, though. Then you’ll really be all messed up. You’ll be up in the middle of the night.”
Miles gave her a wry look. “That’s hardly unusual.”
Myrtle and Miles were fellow insomniacs. Ordinarily, Myrtle would wander over to Miles’s house at two in the morning to work puzzles, watch boring animal documentaries, and drink coffee.
He pulled into her driveway and didn’t appear to be getting out of the car. Myrtle’s frown deepened. “You’re not coming in?”
“You’re writing an article, after all.”
Myrtle said, “I think I can spare thirty minutes to watch the rest of our soap opera. We stopped on quite a cliffhanger. Geraldine just woke up from her twenty-year coma. And the entire town is trapped in a parallel universe. I can’t wait to see what they do with those storylines.”
“Just the same, I think I’ll head back home.”
“I’ll check on you later,” said Myrtle, feeling a surge of responsibility. Miles was decidedly off, that was for sure. Considering the amount of hand sanitizer he was constantly slathering on, a virus seemed unlikely. Still, Myrtle decided she should follow up, just in case.
Miles said, “I’ll be fine. I’m just going to put my feet up. I may turn my phone off.”
It was all most aggravating, having Miles out of sorts. Myrtle climbed out of the car and headed inside the house. He waved to her before heading back to his own place, a couple of doors down. “Peculiar,” said Myrtle.
She opened her front door to see more aggravating and peculiar things. Puddin, allergic to cleaning as usual, was asleep on Myrtle’s sofa, snoring enthusiastically in front of her game show. An overly caffeinated host was exclaiming, “Behind door number three is . . . a brand-new car!”
“Mindless drivel,” muttered Myrtle, walking over to turn it off. She studied the living room. Some baseboards appeared to be cleaned rather haphazardly. Some of them didn’t seem to be cleaned at all.
Puddin was clutching a bag of potato chips like a pillow in her arms.
“Puddin!” said Myrtle sharply.
She thought Puddin would start awake, looking guilty. Instead, she yawned and stretched, dumping the potato chips on the floor and scattering little bits everywhere.
“Puddin!” said Myrtle in a louder, angrier, and more commanding voice.
Puddin opened sullen eyes. “Needed to rest my back.”
“You haven’t done enough baseboard cleaning for your back to be complaining about anything. Plus, you’ve been eating my potato chips.”
“Exercise makes me hungry,” muttered Puddin.
“I’ve had enough of your nonsense today.”
“I can go home?” Puddin’s face lit up.
“No, you can finish the job I’m paying you to do. Then you can go home. I have something important to work on.”
This whetted Puddin’s curiosity. She stood, stretched again, then picked up the rag she’d been using to swipe ineffectually at the baseboards. “What’re you workin’ on?”
“A story for the newspaper.”
Puddin looked scornful now. “One of them hints columns.”
“Not this time. There was an incident while I was out today.” Myrtle hesitated. On the one hand, she hated to feed Puddin’s incessant appetite for gossip. On the other hand, she often knew helpful tidbits about the good citizens of Bradley, usually from her cousin Bitsy. The much-better housekeeper. Myrtle decided to throw a bit of information Puddin’s way. “It so happens that Teddy Hartfield died today.”
Puddin’s eyes were like saucers. “The flower guy?”
“Yes, the florist.”
“Heart attack? Stroke? Cancer?” asked Puddin.
“None of the above. It appears he was murdered.”
Puddin gave a low whistle. “Is that so? Well, that’s cars, ain’t it?’
“Cars? What sort of foolishness are you muttering about now?”
“Cars! You know. When you’re a bad person and then bad things happen to you.”
Myrtle said, “I believe you mean karma.”
“Whatever,” said Puddin, looking sullen.
“Which implies that you don’t think Teddy Hartfield was all that great of a guy.”
Puddin shrugged. “I hear things.” She cut her eyes across to Myrtle as if wanting her to ask more. Puddin liked to be the one knowing things.
Myrtle sighed. She supposed she’d have to play along if she wanted any additional information. “What kinds of things have you heard?”
“He was dating that woman. Linda.”
Myrtle made a face. “Can you be more specific? There must be twenty or more Lindas in this town.”
“Linda Lambert. Bitsy cleans for her.”
Naturally she would. It irritated Myrtle once again that she could only afford the subpar housekeeper in the family. “Linda had reason to kill Teddy?”
“He dumped her,” said Puddin with satisfaction.
“Well, I’m sure that was very annoying, but I’m not sure it would rise to the level of motive. Unless this Linda Lambert is a particularly sensitive soul. Anything else?”
“Nope,” said Puddin, her font of information drying up. She yawned a tremendous yawn.
“It looks as if you should finish the baseboards, then go home and rest.” Myrtle looked at her through narrowed eyes.
Puddin made a face at the baseboards, which remained impassively dirty. “Yeah.”
“Why are you so sleepy? You’re ordinarily at least alert when you’re over here. But today, your eyelids are dropping.”
Puddin raised a hand to her offending eyelids. “Dusty,” she spat out. Dusty was Puddin’s husband and Myrtle’s yardman. “He’s snoring. I can’t stand it.”
“Sleep in another room.”
“Don’t wanna sleep on the sofa,” grumbled Puddin.
“Make Dusty sleep on the sofa.”
“Won’t.” Puddin looked very indignant at this.
Myrtle disappeared down the hall and into her bedroom. She returned with a plastic baggie full of earplugs. “Here. You can’t be falling asleep at work. That’s outside the norm, even for you.”
Puddin grumbled at the earplugs, but took them with alacrity.
“How were you cleaning the baseboards before?” asked Myrtle.
“Kneelin’ and scrubbin’.”
Myrtle said, “Try to work smarter, not harder.”
“Speak English,” said Puddin. Her pale face was getting a surly expression on it now.
“I mean, use the mop to slide across the baseboards. Rinse the mop often. That will keep you from stooping, save your back, and possibly make my baseboards look better than the slapdash cleaning they were getting before.”
Puddin gazed thoughtfully at the baseboards. “Okay.”
And, thankfully, Puddin was soon finished with her chore and out of the house so Myrtle could write her article. But first, she decided to call Miles and check in on him. Miles was often something of an Eeyore, but she hadn’t seen him quite so out of sorts. He didn’t answer the phone. Sighing, she went to her computer and started typing the piece for Sloan.