Hushed Up--Myrtle Clover Mystery #15

Chapter Ten

Myrtle and Miles glanced at each other as they heard Bianca say, "Are you all right? Everything okay? Do you need some more water?"

A few minutes later, she came back with an apologetic expression on her face. "I'm so sorry about that. My son wasn't feeling well this morning so I couldn't take him to school. But I didn't want to not show up at work, especially with everything going on."

Miles asked, "He's sick?" He patted his pockets absently and pulled out his hand sanitizer.

Bianca said quickly, "It's his stomach—just a little virus or something. I brought an air mattress from home for him to sleep on. I figured with some sleep, he'd be better soon."

Myrtle said, "Back to Lillian's death, Bianca. Miles and I were most upset about it, naturally, and have been talking about who could have done such a dreadful thing."

"Did you come to any conclusions?" asked Bianca. She blinked anxiously. "It's terrible to think a murderer is running around Bradley. I have Tim to think about."

"Sadly, we didn't come to any conclusions. But we'd like to know what you think, since you spent so much time with Lillian. Was there any trouble in her life? Anything you can think of that might somehow have led to her death?" asked Myrtle.

Bianca looked uncomfortable. "Well, I don't know if anything I've seen has anything to do with Lillian's murder. I'd hate for somebody to get into trouble for something they didn't do."

"Oh, we're just talking," said Myrtle airily. "It's not as if Miles and I are with the police."

Miles carefully applied another layer of hand sanitizer and gave Bianca a reassuring smile.

Bianca took a deep breath. "All right. I guess the only thing I can think of is the argument Lillian had with her son." She quickly added, "Like I said, I'm sure it doesn't mean anything. Families have fights all the time."

Myrtle nodded. "What sort of argument was it?"

Bianca said, "Martin had apparently been trying to reach Lillian all day at the shop. She and I were working on arrangements for a big wedding and reception for the next day and we were slammed. Her phone would ring and Lillian would stop what she was doing and glance at it. Then she'd give a huge sigh and ignore it. Finally, she wouldn't even look at it anymore when it rang, just let it go to voice mail."

Myrtle said, "How did you know it was Martin? Did Lillian tell you that?"

Bianca said, "Oh, no. No, like I said, Lillian wanted to keep her private life private. But after a while, Martin came into the shop. Usually he was so charming, but this time he was really angry. He yelled at Lillian for not picking up his phone calls."

Miles raised his eyebrows. "I'm guessing Lillian didn't like being yelled at."

Bianca gave him a small smile. "You're right. She snapped right back at him that she was very busy and didn't have time for his nonsense."

Miles said, "Did he say anything about why he'd called?"

Bianca looked uncomfortable. "Something to do about money. I was so embarrassed at that point that I wanted to crawl into a hole. Like I said, Lillian was very private and she wouldn't have wanted to have a conversation like that in front of me. But there we were, working on this important order for a wedding and I figured Lillian wouldn't be happy if I took a break or something, either."

Myrtle tilted her head thoughtfully. "Money. What about money?"

Bianca made a face. "I guess Martin wanted some. For some kind of reason. Anyway, Lillian wouldn't even continue having the conversation with him and he eventually stormed out."