Progressive Dinner Deadly: Myrtle #2

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Unfortunately, taking Cullen home was something like a thirty second drive. Fortunately, Cullen was wasted enough not to notice that Myrtle drove around the square four or five times so she could talk to him a little longer. 

"I'm glad to get a chance to tell you, Cullen, how sorry I was about Jill. You might not know it, but she'd started cleaning for me and my house had never been that clean. Not ever." 

Cullen made a snuffling sound. "She was a good girl," he said in a low voice. 

"She did everything well, didn't she? Your yard was always the neatest one on the street. And she cooked really well I hear-I've heard the old ladies at the church bragging on her and they hadn't been impressed with anyone's cooking since their mamas'." 

The snuffling was louder this time. "Her red beans and rice were to die for." 

An unfortunate choice of words.  

Cullen continued. "I feel horrible about it Miss Myrtle. Can't sleep. Can't eat. Don't want to see anybody. I wasn't a good husband to Jill and now it's too late to say I'm sorry. I'm a sorry excuse for a husband." 

Myrtle was about to ask if there was any other reason he might feel guilty about Jill---like if he'd killed her, for instance. She started the car another lap around the square when Red pulled her over in his patrol car. With his lights, siren, and everything. Bother. 

"License and registration, ma'am," said Red grimly. 

Myrtle crossly rooted around in her pocketbook. "Here's the license. I just got it renewed and it's good through 2026."  

Red seemed to not like the thought of his mother terrorizing the Bradley populace in 2026.  

"And the registration, ma'am? Is this car registered in your name or is it a stolen vehicle?" 

She made a face at him. "I suppose Miles stuck his registration in the glove compartment. Hold on a minute." She reached across Cullen, who had unfortunately fallen asleep, and fumbled around in the glove box until she'd found the registration.  

"You know you were speeding, Mama?" 

"I was going thirty miles an hour!" 

"Speed limit is fifteen around the square." 

"Shoot! Are you giving me a ticket? Sharper than a serpent's tooth..." 

"I'm not a thankless child and you're not King Lear. I may let you off with a warning." 

"Cullen?" Red woke Myrtle's sleeping passenger. "Are you ready to go home?"  

Cullen nodded and Red said, "I don't think Cullen wants to go around and around the square all day while you interrogate him, Mama. So unless you take him straight home, I'll have to consider a kidnapping charge." 

Myrtle glared at him. "I'm on my way back to Cullen's house now. And I wasn't interrogating him-we were having a conversation and I was offering my sympathies." 

Red looked at Cullen, dozing again and hardly likely to dispute Myrtle's version of events. "I've got to get home anyway," she said with a sniff. "I've got to get ready for the United Methodist Women's luncheon." 

Red looked more doubtful about Myrtle's sudden desire to go to church than he had about the non-interrogation.

The United Methodist Women's luncheon would be a good opportunity to talk to a few of the slipperier suspects. Like Willow, who'd successfully eluded her last attempt at questioning her. Willow had espoused many different ideas on religion in Myrtle's presence before and seemed to have formed an amalgam of different ones she liked from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Christianity. Tarot cards were thrown in there somewhere, too. Since there wasn't a place in Bradley, North Carolina, that shared her exact religious views, she was making-do at the Methodist church.