Miles peered down the aisle. "I suppose so. She sort of looks like her, anyway."
"Martin said his mother had some sort of falling out with Tallulah, remember? We should talk to her."
Miles winced. "We're accosting suspects in the grocery store now?"
"We have to make our opportunities where we can find them! Seize the day and all that," said Myrtle firmly. She walked with determination toward the woman with Miles reluctantly trailing behind with the grocery cart.
When the woman spotted Myrtle, she lit up and hurried toward her with just as much determination.
"You were at Lillian's house yesterday morning, weren't you?" the woman asked.
"Yes. I'm Myrtle Clover and this is my friend, Miles Bradford. You were Lillian's neighbor, is that right?"
The woman nodded. "Yes, I was. Such a terrible tragedy." But her eyes were gleaming. "I'm Tallulah Porter. Lillian right lived next-door to me."
Myrtle said, "A tragedy, for sure. Was Lillian a good neighbor? I know her yard was very nice, at least. I have a neighbor who does not keep her yard up and it's a constant aggravation. It would be lovely to have a neighbor with a green thumb, like Lillian."
Tallulah tilted her head doubtfully. "I suppose you could say she had a green thumb. But it wasn't like she was a farmer or owned a garden center or anything. She arranged flowers—that didn't mean she grew them. But I guess she did all right with her yard. She was kind of funny about it. Real particular."
She turned her attention to Miles and he shifted away slightly. "From what I hear, you found Lillian. Is that right?"
Miles said stiffly, "Unfortunately. It was a terrible day. Mostly for Lillian."
Tallulah looked disappointed that Miles didn't appear open to sharing gory details.
Myrtle asked, "You must have known Lillian pretty well, being such a close neighbor."
Tallulah looked pleased to be the resident expert on a murder victim. "In some ways. Like I said, she was real particular about things. I've seen her outside many a day with a pair of scissors clipping any grass blades the yard man had missed."
Myrtle said wryly, "It's a good thing she didn't have my yard man, Dusty. She'd have been out there for hours."
Miles said, "Was Lillian a difficult neighbor to have? I always think it's hard when one has a difficult neighbor." He cut his eyes sideways at Myrtle and Myrtle glowered at him.
Tallulah pursed her lips. "I don't know that I'd say she was always difficult. We did have a slight squabble between us . . . nothing important, you understand. I got 'Yard of the Month' from the neighborhood association and Lillian was very upset." Tallulah smiled faintly at the memory.
"You must keep a very nice yard, yourself," said Myrtle. She reflected darkly on Dusty again.
"I have a nice collection of roses and daylilies," said Tallulah. "I think Lillian envied them, I really do. I'm not going to say Lillian didn't have a nice yard. But the truth is that she spent a lot of time at work and that didn't leave a lot of extra time for her to tinker with her plants. As for me, I was left enough money from my husband when he died to keep me comfortable. And then only thing I have to distract me from my yard is golf."
"You're a golfer?" asked Myrtle. Somehow, Tallulah didn't seem to match Myrtle's vision of a golfer. However, she figured her vision of a golfer was hopelessly outdated since it involved pudgy old men in loud clothing. Or Crazy Dan with his very own version of the classic sport.
"Yes," said Tallulah, puffing up with pride. "I've even won regional competitions. I have trophies at home."
Myrtle quickly continued, hoping to cut Tallulah off before she and Miles received any unwanted invitations to view the trophies. To butter Tallulah up again, she said, "I'm sure the police must have been very interested in asking you questions. After all, being right next door, you might have seen or heard something. Or were you out of the house when Lillian died?"
Tallulah looked smug. "They did ask a lot of questions, yes, because I was at home the whole time. I noticed they asked a lot about the kind of person Lillian was. They wanted to get a better picture of her."
Miles asked, "And what did you say about her?"
"That Lillian could be very challenging to be around. I could hear her yell at all kinds of people who've come to work at Lillian's house: painters, landscapers, even the poor guy who came out to pressure-wash her driveway and front walk."
Myrtle said, "Did they ask you if you'd seen or heard anything suspicious?"
Tallulah looked uncomfortable for a moment before saying, "They did, but I didn't hear a thing. Whoever did this must have been very quiet."
Myrtle couldn't imagine that smashing a dog feeding station over someone's head could have been all that quiet. But she didn't push it. "Do you have an opinion over who might have killed Lillian?"
Here Tallulah's face lit up again. "I sure do, and I shared it with the cops, too. They wrote down every word in their notebooks. Annie. That daughter of hers must have done it. If I'd been Annie, I'd have wanted to get rid of Lillian, too. Lillian did nothing but berate her for years and years. The girl is in her mid or late twenties now and I've never seen an unhappier child. She should be having the time of her life at this point and instead she's been stuck here in Bradley getting yelled at by her mother all the time. Ridiculous."
Tallulah leaned in, her face the picture of ghoulish enjoyment. "Do you think the police will be arresting Annie today? Because of what I told them?"
Myrtle gave Tallulah an annoyed look. "The police can't simply arrest someone because someone else said she was yelled at. They have to have evidence the person perpetrated the crime."
Tallulah's face fell. "I suppose so. Well, maybe they'll find it in the house. Did you see anything that looked like evidence?" Tallulah turned her avid expression to Miles.
Miles's eyes narrowed. "Looking for evidence wasn't exactly my focus. I wanted to see if Lillian was all right first. Then I wanted to call the police. And leave."
Tallulah looked disappointed.
Miles glanced at his watch in a pointed way. "Myrtle, shouldn't we finish up your shopping?"
Myrtle said, "Yes. Yes, we should get on with things. Good speaking with you, Tallulah."
As soon as they moved out of earshot, Miles said, "Good speaking with her?"
"Well, I couldn't very well say it was good to escape from her, could I? I know Lillian wasn't the easiest person to get along with, but I'll bet my bottom dollar Tallulah wasn't exactly the perfect neighbor, either. I have the feeling there were bad feelings between the two of them," said Myrtle.
Miles stopped the cart as Myrtle distractedly threw in a bunch of dairy products. "Tallulah herself said there were bad feelings between them. The 'Yard of the Month' award that Tallulah won."
Myrtle said, "I bet there was a lot more than just a silly award behind their bad feelings." She frowned at the grocery store aisles. "Now I'm thrown all off-course. Maybe I should just do a longer grocery store visit when I've had the chance to make out a thoughtful list. And when I have my coupons with me."
Miles looked in her cart. "Do you even have the right ingredients to make something for supper?"
Myrtle scowled into her cart. "I could eat a can of soup."
Miles grabbed some eggs off the shelf. "Here. Now you can at least have scrambled eggs." He dodged down a nearby aisle and came back holding a box. "And here's granola cereal. Combined with your milk, you should be set for breakfast."
"Good enough since I'm not particular. Let's check out and run this stuff by my house. Then we can head over to the flower shop and run Tippy's errand. And pelt Bianca with questions, of course," added Myrtle.
Forty-five minutes later, they'd dumped off Myrtle's groceries and were pulling up to the flower shop.
Miles sat in the car for a moment after turning off the engine.
Myrtle said, "Come on, Miles, for heaven's sake."
"This won't take long, will it? My lack of sleep is starting to catch up with me." He blinked a few times.
Myrtle's eyes narrowed. "Okay, that's it. I'm driving on the way back."
"That's really not necessary," said Miles quickly.
"Yes, it is. It's either that or I'm walking back home. I'm not putting myself in the situation of being in a vehicle with someone who's going to fall asleep at the wheel."
Miles muttered, "If you walked, you'd likely make it back home at the same time as if you'd driven."
Myrtle glared at him. "I don't drive that slowly!"
Miles briefly closed his eyes. "Let's just make this flower shop visit as fast as possible."
The shop was not exactly a cute shop. Myrtle said, "This shop is just like Lillian. All business. When I picture a flower shop, I'm thinking about ivy climbing up the sides and red trim and adorable arrangements in sweet little pots outside."
"That's definitely not the vibe I'm getting from this place," agreed Miles.
They walked in and instead of a bell ringing, there was an electronic beep that reminded Myrtle of the class bells from her school teaching days. A mousy middle-aged woman of about forty jumped as she heard it as if conditioned to bad experiences when the beep blared. Her red hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and her clothing was bright but didn't match.
She stopped her half-hearted messing with a potted plant and hurried toward them. "Can I help you?" she asked anxiously.
Myrtle said, "I'm Myrtle Clover and this is my friend Miles Bradford. We're members of the garden club that's holding the silent auction."
Now the red-haired woman looked even more concerned. "I'm Bianca Lloyd. Oh dear. Is everything all right?"
"Yes, it's all fine. We checked in with the family and they said the club should continue with the auction, even under the circumstances," said Myrtle.
Bianca paled slightly when Myrtle mentioned the circumstances and looked down at the floor. "I see. I was wondering what would happen to the auction with Lillian being gone."
Myrtle said, "We're just checking in to make sure the arrangements for the auction will remain on time. I have the feeling Lillian herself was probably planning on putting them together, considering she was a garden club member."
Now Bianca looked even more worried. "Yeees, she was. Oh dear. She didn't even tell me what she'd planned for the event. Sometimes, if she was handling something herself, she didn't fill me in."
Miles cleared his throat. "Perhaps she had notes you could find? Sketches? That type of thing?"
Bianca's eyes filled with tears. "Nothing like that, no. Lillian always took a lot of pride in the fact she was able to plan arrangements in her head. I have no idea what she wanted to do."
Myrtle was alarmed about the tears and said briskly, "No worries. Just come up with whatever you think is best. We won't know the difference since we didn't know what Lillian was planning."
Bianca gave her a relieved look and hastily rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, resulting in a rather muddy smear across her face from whatever she was working with before they came in.
"Oh, thank you," she breathed. "Thank you. I was about to be in a total panic. I know Lillian was so particular about her events. I hate to think what she'd have said about whatever I put together."
Myrtle said, "It doesn't really matter, does it? Whatever you come up with will make the venue look better than it ordinarily does and that's the whole point." She paused. "Was Lillian always such an impossible person to work for?"
Bianca's eyes grew huge. "I was so grateful to Lillian. My husband divorced me five years ago and I didn't know what I was going to do. I'd been an at-home Mama with Tim and wasn't qualified to do anything at all. I mean, the last job I had was working as a sales clerk in the dress department of the mall. But no one was hiring for retail and my ex-husband wasn't sending me any money at all. No child support even."
Myrtle gave a ferocious frown. "He's not allowed to get away with that. The courts would make him pay."
Bianca's thin shoulders gave a half-hearted shrug. "I didn't have money to take him to court to force him to. Anyway, there I was with no real skills and no income and a child to feed. And Lillian took me in."
Myrtle said, "It must have been quite a terrible shock to hear the news about Lillian."
Bianca nodded. "Yes. I couldn't really wrap my head around it when the police told me. Lillian seemed like too strong of a woman to ever die." She gave a short laugh. "I know that sounds ridiculous, but that's the way I felt. And I'd had such a quiet last day and morning leading up to it. The night before, I helped Tim with his homework until it was time to go to bed. When he was at school yesterday morning, I came over to the shop to get started early on the arrangements before customers started coming in."
Myrtle said, "So you didn't run by Lillian's house yesterday morning? I'd wondered if maybe you had to sometimes stop by for work."
Bianca blinked at her. "I've never been to Lillian's house. She was a very private woman and wouldn't have liked me being over there." She gave a shudder as if envisioning exactly how irritated Lillian would have been at such an intrusion into her private life. "The only time she ever even spoke about something personal was when she'd tell me about her health problems sometimes. I wondered if maybe they put her in a bad mood. You know, when she wasn't feeling well."
There was a sound in the back of the shop and Bianca jumped and whirled around. "Excuse me for a minute," she murmured and hurried to the back room.