They started working on the puzzles, Miles more cautiously with a pencil and Myrtle more boldly with a pen. Myrtle's brow furrowed in concentration. She wanted to finish hers before Miles did, but she was getting more and more distracted. She badly wanted to blame Puddin for this lack of focus, but she had the feeling it was related to something else.
"Miles."
"Mmm?" asked Miles, frowning at his puzzle.
"Do you remember when we first spoke with Bianca at the flower shop?"
Miles said absently, "Sure."
"Do you remember when she said she'd never been over to Lillian's house?"
"I guess. She said Lillian didn't like combining her professional and personal lives," said Miles. He tapped his pencil on the puzzle.
"Then we spoke with Carolyn at the library." Myrtle frowned up at the ceiling.
"The book she recommended is very good."
"Yes, I'm sure it is. But she also mentioned something. She said Lillian was hard on Bianca. Carolyn knew this because she lived next-door to Lillian and heard her speak to Bianca. At Lillian's house."
Miles shrugged. "So Bianca was wrong. She was sort of distracted when we spoke to her with her son being in the back room."
A chill went up Myrtle's spine. "Yes. But then she said something else to me tonight. She said she was glad Lillian's basket sold so well at the auction, despite the fact the feeder was used as a weapon."
"A surprising fact," said Miles.
"But Miles, no one knew the dog feeding station was the weapon. Red told you not to mention it to anybody. And neither he nor Perkins would have said a word."
Myrtle and Miles stared at each other. Miles put his pencil down.
The doorbell rang.
Myrtle sighed. "Puddin must have been lurking in the neighborhood to get here this quickly."
She opened the door a crack and saw Bianca there.
Myrtle carefully modulated her voice. "Hi, Bianca. Listen, I'm absolutely worn out after tonight. I'll catch up with you tomorrow, all right?"
"I don't think so," said Bianca in a hollow voice. She pointed a gun at Myrtle. "I'd like to come inside now."
Myrtle backed away from the door and Bianca pushed her way in. Bianca gave a startled cry as she saw Miles frozen at the table. She waved her gun at both of them. "Sit next to each other," she hissed. "And no funny business! I don't have a lot of time."
Myrtle walked over to plop down heavily next to Miles. "Is that because your son is by himself? You don't like to leave him in the house long, do you? That's why these murders happened at night, isn't it? You put your son to bed and then you run out really quickly to take someone's life. You don't even have to pay for a sitter that way, do you?"
Bianca glared at her. "This is all your fault."
Myrtle raised her eyebrows. "Is it? I think that statement shows a startling lack of imagination."
Miles muttered, "Myrtle. She has a gun."
"I'm well aware of that, Miles. It's pointed directly at us. I'm simply pointing out what happened here. I need to talk through the narrative so it makes some sort of sense." She paused. "You have to understand, Bianca, I don't ordinarily have guns held on me very often. I suppose my conversation with you tonight made you realize you'd made a mistake."
Bianca's hand shook as she trained the gun on them. "I saw you looking at me like you knew something."
"Sure. But I didn't know what I knew then. I only just figured it out."
"Yes, but you were figuring it out. You're not stupid," said Bianca with clear regret. "I heard you talking with Rowan. About evidence being faked."
Myrtle said, "One thing I noticed when Miles and I were visiting Martin at his house was Martin was a fidgety sort. You don't really think of serious readers as being fidgety, but maybe he also fidgeted with stuff while he read."
"Maybe you should get to the point," said Bianca, shaking a little more.
"The point is that the object Martin was playing with during our visit was a sterling silver business card case. Monogrammed. And I do remember he was gloating about his upcoming inheritance and becoming the owner of the flower shop. He was planning on going right over to the shop directly after we left."
Bianca shrugged, but her eyes were watchful.
Miles said slowly, "The way Martin was twirling that case and catching it, he probably did the same at the shop. Maybe he also laid it down while he was looking around. You had the chance to take it and use it as planted evidence at Tallulah's house."
"Tallulah must have seen you at the house. Maybe she told herself it was business-related. Maybe she only remembered seeing you later on. But it started bothering her and she decided to speak with Red about it," said Myrtle.
"How do you know that?" asked Bianca in a voice barely louder than a whisper.
"Because it was completely obvious at the funeral. Tallulah's eyes were trained on Red and she was clearly trying to find a private moment to talk with him. If it was obvious to me, it must have been obvious to you, too," said Myrtle.
Bianca shrugged. "All I know is, I went up to talk to her and she turned bright red and started stammering. Seemed like she knew something."
"And you went over to see her and killed her with the closest object to hand . . . one of her golf clubs," said Myrtle. She gave Bianca a reproving look. "It was your same modus operandi with Lillian's death. Why did you go over to Lillian's that night? Did you go over expressly to murder her, or were you trying to have a conversation with her?"
"I was just trying to reason with her," whispered Bianca. The hand holding the gun shook. "That's all. She was talking about firing me because of something she said I messed up at a graduation party. But the flowers looked great! Everybody said so. There are no jobs here in Bradley and I can't move Tim to another town and another school. He's already had so many changes in his life already."
Miles frowned. "But killing Lillian wasn't going to keep you employed."
Bianca blinked at him. "I was just mad. She wouldn't listen to me. She never listened to me. I went there to reason with her and explain how much I needed the job. Lillian just laughed in my face and told me how bad I was. I saw red. That's all. And Martin had always been nice to me. As the new owner, I figured maybe I'd get a better deal."
"Then it was strange you decided to set him up for murdering his mother and Tallulah," said Myrtle coolly. "Although I suppose that was simply out of convenience since you had his business card holder he'd left at the shop. Still, it seems as though there might have been better candidates."
Bianca snapped, "Look, I don't have time for this. I have to get back to my son. It's not safe to leave him by himself."
"With a killer running around?" asked Myrtle laconically.
Miles gave her a look intended to make her hold her tongue.
Myrtle said, "You're not even thinking straight, Bianca. The gun you're holding on us doesn't even have a silencer. The police chief lives directly across the street."
"Well, I'm pretty close to the door," snarled Bianca. "Besides, I didn't see his car over there. I just need to hurry up, that's all."
She leveled the gun directly at Myrtle's chest. Myrtle and Miles looked at each other in panic.
Suddenly, the door was shoved open and Puddin appeared.
"Where's my watch?" she demanded.
When she took in the scene in front of her: the white-faced Myrtle and Miles, and Bianca, who'd swung around with the gun, Puddin started screaming bloody murder.
The sound was ear-piercing. It was a wail very much like a siren on all the emergency vehicles rolled into one.
"Stop it! Stop it!" yelled Bianca.
Which was when Dusty pushed his way in past Puddin and waved his hedge trimmer threateningly at Bianca. Puddin continued screaming, the decibel level increasing as time went on.
While Bianca was distracted by the cacophony, Myrtle looked at Jack's toy ambulance, which Red still hadn't come by for. Miles, seeing the direction of her gaze, pushed it over to her with his foot. Myrtle slipped up behind Bianca (who was ducking as Dusty swung the hedge trimmer at her) and launched the toy at her head. Suddenly, the ambulance's broken siren roared back into life and wailed as loudly as Puddin had, lights flashing.
They all stared at the unconscious Bianca on the ground. Myrtle carefully picked up the gun and cleared her throat. "Perhaps now would be a good time for someone to call Red."