Cooking is Murder, A Myrtle Clover Mystery #11

Chapter Twenty-One

Felix turned to look at her, astonished.

Myrtle turned the light back off and swung her cane at Felix, hard. She connected to him somewhere and he let out a stream of profanity and lurched toward her. Myrtle swung again at him, making contact but not nearly as hard. She stumbled away to run toward the living room and front door.

Her knowledge of her home's layout was a plus and she carefully skirted any objects in her way, hurrying toward the door. The profanity behind her grew louder as Felix ran into Myrtle's armchair. Then he started screaming and Myrtle glanced behind her to see that Pasha had leaped from Myrtle's desk onto Felix's back and was screeching about as loudly as Felix was.

To her great relief, Miles appeared from the hallway, glasses askew and eyes wide.

"Call Red!" said Myrtle as Felix tore Pasha off of his back, stumbling almost drunkenly in the process and crashing into Elaine's hideous gnome. He hit the floor with a resounding thud, knocking his head against Myrtle's coffee table as he went down.

"People is clumsy," said Myrtle thoughtfully, remembering what Wanda said. And then, "No hurry, Miles. He's seeing stars. And I want to talk to him for a few minutes before Red comes over."

Felix groaned from the floor.

"Don't try anything, Felix. Miles and I make a formidable team. I would give you a glass of water, but since you're an uninvited guest, I think we'll just skip the formalities. Plus the fact that you tried to kill Miles, of course."

Miles, considering he was so close to death, seemed only mildly miffed.

"I wasn't trying to kill Miles," said Felix coldly.

Myrtle said, "Oh, I know. You were trying to kill me. Quite unsuccessfully, I might add. And you must have gotten a lot of bumps and bruises from climbing in the kitchen window. That was only meant to be a portal for Pasha."

Felix didn't answer.

"The nice thing is, that you so solidly incriminated yourself. Attempted murder of Miles with me as witness? What a mess. You see, all I really had was circumstantial evidence," said Myrtle.

Felix remained sulkily silent.

Miles said, "I'd like to hear the circumstantial evidence. A lot must have happened while I was asleep."

"Not much, actually. Short conversations with Bonnie and Tippy. What did happen is that I had a series of epiphanies," said Myrtle.

"Which were?" asked Miles.

Felix's normally friendly face scowled at Myrtle.

"That Felix wasn't good at telling the truth. He lied about playing football with Chester in high school, for one."

Felix's eyes glinted. "That was a slight exaggeration. Hardly a criminal offense."

"You're not really the most coordinated person, so I should have guessed earlier that you weren't telling the truth. You also lied about Louvenia. You said that you wanted to speak to her about a volunteer project at the church. But Tippy Chalmers, who knows everything about what goes on at the church, said you weren't very involved over there. Another example of your not telling the truth," said Myrtle.

"White lies," shrugged Felix, sitting up cautiously. "The kind of thing most politicians do. I merely was avoiding a lengthy explanation."

"Of course, there was the fact that you hustled Louvenia out of my dinner party very quickly to make sure no one got help for her," added Myrtle.