Hushed Up--Myrtle Clover Mystery #15

Chapter Five

Myrtle waved a hand in the air. "Sure, I do. It's just eggs and stuff. Those are staples at my house and Red just drove me to the store a few days ago. Besides, if there's an ingredient I'm short on, I can just substitute something else. That's what cooking is all about—creativity. And I'm a creative person."

Miles sighed. Then he said quickly, "What can I bring over? Guests are supposed to bring over contributions, after all."

Myrtle said doubtfully, "Do they do that for a breakfast? I'm not really sure about that. That's more of a dinner thing where maybe they bring over a bottle of wine."

"Perhaps it would be good to serve alcohol tomorrow," muttered Miles.

"No, no, it's way too early. Besides, Perkins has to go off to work immediately afterwards. It's far too early even for mimosas or bloody Marys. I suppose, if you must bring something, perhaps a bread of some kind. That might work well. But I don't want Perkins to feel uncomfortable if he doesn't bring anything, so be sure to be unobtrusive when you bring it in."

"I'll try," said Miles.

Myrtle was furiously writing her story for Sloan when she heard a loud vehicle rattling up in front of her house. She peeked out the window to see Dusty's truck with Puddin's pale, pasty, unhappy face behind the wheel. She opened the door and waited as Puddin slouched unhappily up the front walk.

Myrtle glared at her. "Where are your cleaning supplies, Puddin?"

Puddin glared back. "Don't got 'em, do I? I'm in Dusty's truck. He don't got no cleaners."

"I don't have time today for this nonsense. You should have grabbed your supplies from your car before you got into Dusty's truck."

Puddin raised her eyebrows. "You tole me to come right away."

Myrtle gestured Puddin inside. "For heaven's sake. You'd try the patience of a saint. Just come on in and use my cleaning supplies, like you usually do anyway."

"Them supplies is expensive," muttered Puddin sullenly.

"Yes, I know," said Myrtle. "That's my point. Never mind. You get started with the cleaning. I've got to finish this article and send it over to Sloan . . . I have a deadline."

Puddin, naturally, picked the loudest activity to start with so she could be at the maximum level of being annoying. The vacuum cleaner roared back and forth beside Myrtle, being shoved around by a resentful Puddin. Myrtle put headphones on and gritted her teeth as she continued to write the story.

At some point, the roaring stopped and Myrtle continued to write, headphones on and soft music playing. But when she finally noticed it was far too quiet in her house, she took the headphones off and looked around the room. She saw Puddin sitting on her sofa, talking on the phone.

"Puddin!" hissed Myrtle.

Puddin said in annoyance, "One minute, Miz Myrtle."

"I think you've already had that," muttered Myrtle.

Puddin ignored her. "All right. All right, Bitsy. I'll be right over there. Yep, got the truck."

Puddin hung up and Myrtle stared coldly at her. "I hope by 'be right over,' you meant in two hours. You haven't even finished vacuuming the house, Puddin!"

Puddin shrugged. "Can't do it, Miz Myrtle. That was my cousin Bitsy."

"Yes, I gathered it was one of your various and sundry cousins. What did she want?"

Puddin said, "She threw her back and needs a ride to the doctor."

Myrtle closed her eyes and then slowly opened them. "Surely, thrown backs aren't contagious."

Puddin shrugged. "Maybe it's one of them genetic things."

"Maybe you could simply advise her on it, since you experience them so frequently yourself," said Myrtle smoothly.

Puddin screwed up her face. "Don't like it when you don't speak English, Miz Myrtle. Anyway, gotta go. See you later."

"Later when?" demanded Myrtle.

But Puddin had already gone, leaving the vacuum in the middle of the floor.

Myrtle muttered dire imprecations about the complete unreliability of Puddins in general and glanced around the small living room. She supposed it would appear clean enough if she kept the lighting fairly low. Would it be odd to dine by candlelight at seven-thirty in the morning? Regardless, she didn't have any time to worry with it all. She needed to finish her story for Sloan and then get things ready for Perkins to come over tomorrow. She wanted to put out a fresh tablecloth in the kitchen and use her better china. She just needed to make sure her better china wasn't dusty from disuse.

It took her quite a bit longer to do these things than she'd thought. But that was because Tippy called once again to speak to her and fret about the silent auction and the suitability of having it go on as planned or politely shelving it for another date. Myrtle had been tapping her foot through the entire phone conversation until she was finally able to get Tippy off the phone. She was worried Sloan had either forgotten about her story or had given up on it for the day, so gave him a follow-up call to let him know she had just emailed it to him ten minutes after she'd gotten off the phone with Tippy.

"By the way, you need to give Wanda a raise," said Myrtle.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Why do you say that?" Sloan's voice was cautious.

"Think of all the attention she brings for the paper. You'd told me yourself subscriptions were up and that simply doesn't happen for newspapers these days. Since Wanda is such a draw, she should have a cut of the profits."

Sloan said, "Miss Myrtle, we're not really drowning in profits here. We're barely keeping our heads above water."

"So is Wanda," said Myrtle sharply.

Sloan sounded miserable as he always did when he had to contradict Myrtle. "Miss Myrtle, I'm just not really sure that's feasible."

"I see." Myrtle pursed her lips. "I didn't want to do this, Sloan, but I happen to have a transcribed horoscope column from Wanda in my possession right this very minute. It has gobs of information your subscribers are going to want to see. But I don't feel right hitting 'send' on the email until I have your word you're going to increase Wanda's compensation."

There was a groan on the other end.

Myrtle snapped, "I don't have time to play games. It's time for me to turn in since I have a busy day tomorrow. But I'm sure there'll be a lot of disappointed people when there's no horoscope in the paper."

A moment later Sloan quickly offered to increase Wanda's salary by five percent. Myrtle smiled and sent the email.

Finally, she dropped into bed and, surprisingly, slept very soundly.