Progressive Dinner Deadly: Myrtle #2

Chapter Twelve

At the exciting conclusion of Tomorrow's Promise, there was a familiar pounding at Myrtle's front door. She groaned. It had to be Erma. Myrtle knew that pummeling anywhere. Myrtle picked up her cane and moved quietly to the front door, peeping out the window. It was Erma, her rat-like face now peering directly into the window Myrtle was looking out of. Myrtle jumped half out of her skin.  

She'd been spotted. Now there was nothing else to do but open the door. Thinking fast, Myrtle also grabbed her pocketbook from the wooden coat rack near the door. If she said she was on her way out, she could expedite this unexpected visit. And could keep Erma on the front porch where she wouldn't get too cozy.  

"Myrtle," shrilled Erma. "I had the weirdest visit from your boy. And that other policeman." 

"Detective Lieutenant Perkins, you mean?" asked Myrtle. She reached behind her to turn the ceiling fan on in the hopes of cooling off her temper, and then plopped wearily into a rocking chair. Erma sat down abruptly, and then rocked forward, wagging her finger at Myrtle. 

"Red came quite unexpectedly. He and that Polkens asked all these peculiar questions. Do you know anything about why they did that?" Erma's narrow eyes managed to squint even more.  

"I never get any information from Red about his investigations," said Myrtle quite truthfully. "Erma, I was on my way out the door..."  

"It was almost like they were working on a tip that I had employed Jill. And that I knew something about the murder. I don't know a thing about it. But I did tell them all about my cyst. They seemed really interested in it. Why wouldn't they be? It's such an unusual problem; my doctor said he'd never seen anything like it. At first I thought it was some weird pimple, but then it grew to the size of a quarter. The doctor was puzzled: was it an ingrown hair? A calcium deposit? A fatty tumor? He lanced the cyst and then..." 

At that moment a miracle occurred. Or so it seemed to Myrtle. Pasha appeared from the side of the house. She loped purposefully up the stairs and inserted herself directly in front of Erma-the antithesis of normal feral cats' behavior with strangers. It assessed Erma, loathed her on sight, and began a low, menacing growl from way in the back of its throat.  

Erma's transformation was astonishing. Her eyes, so filled with eagerness with recounting the story, widened so you could see the whites on all sides. Her mouth became a giant O and she pushed backwards with her feet until the rocker's legs scraped the paint on the front of Myrtle's house. "Get it away," she bellowed. 

Myrtle was too startled by Erma's reaction and the cat's hatred to do anything at first. Pasha's fur stood straight up on end and it arched its back, hissing.  

Erma started wheezing and her eyes watered. "Allergic!" she said hoarsely. Myrtle unenthusiastically shooed the cat, but it wouldn't budge. The best of all possible outcomes happened when Erma finally bolted up from her chair and hurried off the porch, sneezing. She gave Myrtle a hurried, dismissive wave as she staggered off to her house, slamming the door behind her with a bang.  

Myrtle looked at the cat, now sitting on the rocker and licking its fur with satisfaction. "Pasha," said Myrtle thoughtfully. "You may be my new best friend."

Unfortunately for Myrtle's investigation, her brain rejuvenation was wasted on blogging and her next helpful hints column. Myrtle did manage to justify this to herself, though. After all, if Sloan fired her because she wasn't meeting her deadlines, then she wasn't going to have her big story as an investigative reporter for the Bradley Bugle. 

She'd actually gotten a fair number of tips in her email this week. Most of them seemed to deal with stain removal. Myrtle took this to mean that the people of Bradley, North Carolina, were a clumsy lot who drank lots of red wine, chewed bubble gum, and marked themselves up with ball point pens. Still, it was good to know that adding a couple of Alka-Seltzer tablets to the bottom of a glass vase removes stains. Next time she got flowers, she'd have to remember that. She wondered if Red would send her flowers after she solved his case for him.