Progressive Dinner Deadly: Myrtle #2

Chapter Thirteen

"You could have told us," said Perkins, hushing the spluttering Red. "If you'd told us there'd been an attempt on your life then maybe we could have figured out who was behind it." 

"But there wouldn't have been any evidence. And I didn't see anything." 

"What," asked Red in a carefully modulated voice, "were the third and fourth times?" 

"There's a vegetable casserole in my kitchen. Actually, it's all over my kitchen. I'm pretty sure that it's poisoned, judging from Willow's reaction when some of it got in her mouth. And the fourth time would have been this." And Myrtle pulled on the collar of her robe to show the angry marks around her neck where Willow had squeezed her hands. 

"What I don't really understand," said Lieutenant Perkins slowly, "is why she was so determined to get rid of you. It's not like you knew anything." He raised his eyebrows questioningly at Myrtle and looked at her searchingly with his steady, gray eyes. "Is it? Did you know something?" 

Myrtle frowned indignantly at Perkins. "If I'd known anything, I certainly wouldn't have let Willow into my house at nine o'clock at night. No, I think she just knew I was on the verge of knowing something. And she knew, of course, that I was nosing around. Erma Sherman was blabbing about how I was about to solve the case and Willow was right there. And then Sloan ran that piece in the paper about his octogenarian investigative reporter who was hot on the scent. I'm sure that didn't exactly help." 

"I'll have to have a little talk with Sloan," said Red. Miles came back in with a couple of wine glasses and a bottle of wine. He gave Myrtle a sympathetic look. Having Red cramp her style at the newspaper was not going to go over well. 

"Let's talk about this detective work," said Perkins, with a silencing look at Red. "What exactly did you find out? You say you didn't know anything until tonight?" 

Myrtle sighed. "Well, I had all the pieces in front of me, but I didn't put it together until Willow came over. Which is unfortunate. I guess she could tell that I'd had some sort of a revelation. After all, she'd been expecting one all along." She remembered Willow's strangely piercing eyes.  

"It was the vegetable casserole, you see. And we were talking about her organic vegetable and herb garden. She's this healthy-living hippy. I remembered she brought her own food to the United Methodist Women luncheon because she didn't want any vegetables that were cooked in chicken broth or pork. But then I remembered how she told me she was getting barbeque the day after Jill was killed." 

"It didn't make any sense," said Myrtle. "It made a lot more sense that she went back there to get her casserole dish. The dish she said she never took there. Because if she'd taken her own food to Jill's like she usually did, it would have placed her on the scene of the crime. And she didn't want to risk that." 

"Plus," said Myrtle, "once I thought about her whole healthy living credo, I realized that it was very odd that she would have been buying cigarettes at the store. When Elaine told me that, I just chalked it up to Willow being unpredictable. Then I remembered how toxic nicotine in liquid form actually is. And Willow, as a former nurse, would have known that. Red, didn't you tell me that Maisy was poisoned by nicotine?" 

Perkins and Red nodded. "But why," asked Perkins, "wouldn't Willow just have used something from her garden? She probably has all sorts of dangerous plants in her back yard." 

"It would have pointed everybody in her direction, wouldn't it? She's the herb expert. No, it had to be something that she ordinarily wouldn't have been associated with. Willow had already decided I knew who did it, because of Erma and Sloan. And tonight she could tell that I'd finished adding things up. She was going to have to finish me off before I pegged her as the killer."