Cooking is Murder, A Myrtle Clover Mystery #11

Chapter Six

"Pasha!" exclaimed Myrtle. "You about scared me half to death."

The feral black cat's eyes smiled naughtily up at her.

"Want to come in and have a snack?" asked Myrtle, as she fumbled with her keys.

She managed to quickly sidestep a love offering from Pasha that she'd laid on Myrtle's front step. Pasha seemed to think that Myrtle was hopeless at hunting and kept bringing her dead gifts as encouragement to try harder.

"I'm going to have to get Red to take care of that corpse later. I don't think Puddin will do it," muttered Myrtle to herself. She pushed open her front door and followed as Pasha strolled casually inside.

Pasha walked straight to Myrtle's kitchen, still apparently in hunting phase as she scoured the room looking for things to kill. To Myrtle's relief, as she pulled out a can of cat food, there appeared to be nothing for Pasha to assault. Soon the cat was gobbling up the cat food that Myrtle put on a paper plate.

"Now you've made me lose my train of thought," scolded Myrtle in an affectionate voice. "I was coming in here to do something, and I know it wasn't to watch my soap. Oh, that's right—Sloan."

Sloan picked up the phone immediately, although he sounded sleepy. "Bradley Bugle," said Sloan.

"Sloan? Myrtle Clover here."

She heard a lot of sudden squeaking in the background. Myrtle could picture him in his stuffy, dimly-lit newsroom. The squeaking must be due to Sloan trying to correct the posture of his heavy frame. His rolling desk chair sounded as if it must be going through death throes. Sloan always snapped to attention when his former teacher called.

"Miss Myrtle! Good to hear from you. I hope you've got a column for me. I was just about to email you."

"Actually, I'm calling because I've got a big story I wanted to tell you about," said Myrtle briskly. She watched as Pasha cleaned the plate of every bit of food.

Sloan groaned. "Miss Myrtle, I don't know if I can handle another big story of yours. You remember the last time you called me with a story?"

"I can't help it that this town is so boring that the only thing that qualified as a big story was the herd of deer cavorting in Darlene Kirby's yard. Actually, I have a follow-up for that story, too. It appears that Darlene was feeding the deer and that's why they were so interested in hanging out in her yard. I believe Darlene should have given us full disclosure on that at the very beginning. She made it sound like something mystical was happening." Myrtle sat down at her kitchen table. "And it was just corn happening."

Sloan hesitated, seeming to grope for words. "So, this isn't a deer story? Or a rabid raccoon story?"

"Not at all. It's a murder story. An exclusive. I happened to be there at the time," said Myrtle.

"You saw a murder?" There was more chair squeaking in the background.

"Certainly not! I found the body, that's all. I'd like to think that I'd prevent a murder from happening, if someone were attempting it right in front of me. Anyway, this isn't just a murder. It's a murder of a rather well-known person in this town—Chester Struby."

Now she appeared to have gotten Sloan's attention. "Chester? Construction Chester?"

"The very one. I've got all kinds of details and I want to be the one to write the story. And, since the murder isn't yet solved, I want to be the correspondent assigned to the story." Myrtle thought that correspondent sounded a lot grander than reporter.

"Oh, I don't know, Miss Myrtle." Sloan's voice was anxious. "You know how Red feels about you investigating crimes."

"I didn't say that I wanted to investigate it. I merely said that I wanted to report it. Those are two very different things," said Myrtle.