A Body in the Trunk : Myrtle Clover Book 12

Chapter Twelve

"Well, at least she's going to take care of it." He glanced around. "Do any of these many containers have a purpose? To transport the soup in, perhaps?"

"Just pick one of them. There was an avalanche in the container cabinet and those were the ones that fell out," said Myrtle.

Miles picked a container and carefully spooned some of the now-gloppy mixture into it. He put the container in a bag. He looked at the soup as if he would like to put a warning label on it.

"Let's go," said Myrtle impatiently.

"Are we driving down there?"

Myrtle said, "I think it would take us just as long to drive as to walk. Let's just walk it."

They were nearly there when Miles said, "Now remember, this is a grieving widow, Myrtle. We shouldn't be giving her the third degree or anything. She may not really want to talk about what happened to Lyle. She may just want us to leave the soup and go on our way."

Myrtle said, "I'm not really wanting to press her about what specifically happened to Lyle."

Miles raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

"No. That would be in poor taste." Myrtle sniffed.

"That's never stopped you before," said Miles.

"Well, this time I have an alternate source for information. We're having lunch with Lt. Perkins, remember? I'm more interested in finding out if she has any idea who might be behind Lyle's death. I want to know the who and not so much the how," said Myrtle.

Miles peered ahead of them. "It looks like you'll have the chance. The police have vacated. A good thing, since I wasn't looking forward to explaining to Red or Lt. Perkins why you and I were questioning their victim's widow."

"You keep throwing widow around as if it's this horribly tragic thing. For all we know, Sally may be a merry widow. We don't know anything about her relationship with Lyle. After all, Lyle could be a bit prickly. Think about how he blew up at Neil over an un-mowed lawn." She looked around as they walked past Clara Albert's driveway. "Speaking of, it looks as if Dusty did a nice job. I think he did a better job on Clara's yard than he does on mine. How annoying."

Miles said, "Dusty probably just wanted to do a good job to convince Clara to continue employing him."

They reached Sally's driveway and walked up. When they reached the front door and Myrtle rang the doorbell, Miles thrust the bag of soup at her. "Here. It's your soup. You should be the one to give it to her."

"We could say it's from both of us. Otherwise, it looks a little odd that you had to accompany me here," said Myrtle.

"I want no responsibility for that soup." Miles's voice was stern. "I was simply carrying it for you since you walk with a cane. That's our excuse for my presence here. Although I doubt she'll think twice about it."

Sally Solomon, when she opened the door, didn't appear to be thinking much of anything. Her eyes were red as if she'd been crying and her shoulder-length blonde hair was mussed. Her cotton top had coffee stains on it as if the police had kept thrusting coffee at her to try and get her through it all. She gave them a faint smile when she saw them. "Hi, Miss Myrtle. Hi Miles."

Myrtle said, "We heard the news this morning and are so sorry. We brought you some broccoli soup."

Miles interjected hurriedly, "Myrtle made it. It's from Myrtle, actually. I merely carried it here."

Myrtle glared at him and Sally said, "How kind of you Myrtle. And Miles, for lugging it. Please come inside. And excuse the mess."

Myrtle and Miles followed Sally inside. But there was no mess. Myrtle dreamed of her house being this neat and tidy. The floor was spotless. Dust wouldn't have dared to settle on any of the surfaces. Apparently, Lyle liked the inside of the house being just as tidy as the outside.