Murder on Opening Night: Myrtle Clover #9

Chapter Eight

Wanda emerged from the shadows of the front porch. To Myrtle's alarm, she appeared to be toting a large, brown grocery bag. She paused for a moment and said with a serious look at Puddin, "Never mind about not sleepin'. It'll end soon enough."

She proceeded into the house as Puddin gave Myrtle a meaningful look and mouthed witches! At her. At that moment, Pasha chose to wind herself lovingly around Wanda's thin legs. Which likely only solidified Puddin's opinion of Wanda.

Myrtle waved goodbye emphatically and pointedly to Puddin and turned to the scrawny psychic. "Wanda dear. And Pasha, too! You've made an impression on my feral friend." Myrtle petted Pasha, crooning. Then she straightened to give Wanda's bag a wary look.

"Wanted to bring more," said Wanda. She set the bag on Myrtle's coffee table and looked at it with satisfaction.

"More squash?" asked Myrtle. She was glad Miles wasn't here. She'd have hated to see the expression on his face.

Wanda grinned at her, revealing a collection of crooked, missing, and yellowed teeth. "To thank Miles. You'll give it to him? I know he's sleepin' now."

How Wanda could know that Miles was sleeping and not know of his intense hatred of squash, Myrtle wasn't sure. Wanda's odd gift certainly seemed uneven. "I'll see that he gets it. But I'm shocked you have so much more harvested, considering how much you brought us yesterday."

"Bumper crop," said Wanda. She sat down on Myrtle's sofa and gently stroked Pasha, who had immediately jumped into her lap.

"Oh good, you can visit," said Myrtle. Although all this activity so early in the morning might mean that Myrtle would have to compensate with a late-morning nap.

"Also brought in some work," Wanda reached into a pocket and pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper. She squinted at it. "Dan helped me with some of the words. Sorry. Hope you get the gist."

Myrtle walked over to get the paper and then sat on the sofa. She had little hope that Crazy Dan, Wanda's aptly named brother, would be much help. And, indeed, the horoscope was nearly incomprehensible for a variety of different reasons from the deplorable penmanship to the ghastly grammar. But the core of the content seemed solid, if odd. Everything from Skorpeos shudnt eat hambergers frum Hungrey Billys ... espeshelly Mark Tipple to Airez need to git there teeth cheked ...that means little Pattie Barnhill.

"Ah, excellent," said Myrtle diplomatically. "I'll be sure to clean this up. And, perhaps, to delete any references to anything that might provoke a lawsuit for libel."

This seemed to agitate Wanda. "Mark Tipple is gonna get food poisoning from Hungry Billy's," she said.

"That may well be, but I don't think we can print something like that. And next time, we should probably consider removing personal references altogether," said Myrtle. Her head started hurting just a bit. This was going to end up being a time consuming project. She rapidly shifted gears before Wanda could plead her case on individual horoscopes."While you're here, have you got more insights on the case for me?"