A Body in the Backyard: #4

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

The next morning, Myrtle checked her computer. She saw that her blog post had indeed published as she'd scheduled it.  

There was also another interesting post on the Bradley Bugle's blog. Apparently, Connie Clayborne was offering a reward for information involving the murder of her son. Myrtle blinked. It was a reward for five thousand dollars. The best part of all was that Connie was only asking for information, not an arrest. Myrtle smiled. 

There was a light tap at her front door. This was puzzling at around seven in the morning, but not nearly as scary as the unexpected knock on the door last night. Myrtle looked out the front window and saw Annette there, still in her scrubs. 

"Hi, Miss Myrtle," said Annette. "I'm on my way home, so I can't come in to visit. But I just wanted to let you know real quick that I found my pocketbook so that you wouldn't feel you had to keep looking for it. It had slid under the front seat of the car and I couldn't see it." 

Myrtle had completely forgotten about her pocketbook. But she quickly said, "Oh good! I'm so glad you found it." She noticed there were some dark circles under Annette's eyes. From working the night shift at the hospital? Or something else? "Is there something wrong?" she asked. "You look like you might have something else on your mind." 

Annette shrugged. "It's probably nothing. It's just that Silas and I are still arguing about everything. We had an argument before I left for work last night, too. I kind of dread going home tonight." 

"No, I suppose not. What have y'all been arguing about...your relationship with Charles still?"  

"That's at the bottom of every argument, even if it's technically not what we're fussing over," said Annette. "But last night, we did actually argue about Charles. During the argument, it came out that Silas had followed Charles the night he died." She shifted her weight uncomfortably.  

"Did he say anything else after that? He didn't confess to killing Charles, did he?" 

"Nothing like that. That's about the time that I stormed off to work, since I was going to be late if I didn't go ahead and leave. Plus, the whole conversation was making me feel sick. I still don't think that Silas could kill anybody, but it's bad enough that he was even there the night Charles died." Annette's face was pale and unhappy. 

"Are you going to ask him about it when you get home? What time does Silas leave for work?" asked Myrtle. 

"He usually goes in at nine o'clock, so I have some time. I was going to go to Bo's Diner, eat breakfast, and kill time until he leaves the house. No, I wasn't going to ask him any more about it-the whole conversation was making me feel sick. But I can't stand not knowing, either." Annette hesitated. "Miss Myrtle, I hate to ask you this. It's just that you seem very interested and helpful. Could you possibly....?" 

"I'd love to!" said Myrtle in a rush. Then she decided that was inappropriately enthusiastic, so she edited herself to say, "I mean, of course I'd be happy to help you out and ask Silas what happened the night Charles was murdered. In fact, you might have seen my post on the Bradley Bugle's site today-I'm really getting close to piecing together who's behind these murders."  

Annette wrinkled her brow as if she couldn't quite imagine why Myrtle would be investigating the murders to begin with. "I'm doing some investigative reporting for the paper. I'm a correspondent for them, you know." 

"I didn't realize that, no," said Annette, still sounding dubious. "I don't read the paper very much-even online." Then her eyes widened with alarm. "You're not going to put anything about Silas in the paper, are you?" They got even bigger when another thought occurred to her. "Or tell Red about this?"