A Dyeing Shame (14 page)

Myrtle glanced at the clock. She eased onto the sofa, shook off her shoes, and put her feet on the coffee table. She found the record button on the remote and pushed it.

Soaps were a guilty pleasure. The writing was frequently horrid, the acting worse. But there was just something about them that drew her in. Babies born mere episodes ago might now be precocious toddlers to fit the needs of the scriptwriters.

She clucked at the television. Sally, married to the obnoxious bully Stone, finally left him, embarking on a similarly dependent relationship with obsessively jealous Wesley. Myrtle shook her head. The show’s writers obviously thought their audience gullible enough to believe these plots.

The doorbell rang. Myrtle scowled at the buzz, hoping it hadn’t awakened Jack. An angry roar indicated it had. Myrtle cursed at her cane, propped unhelpfully across the room, and tried pulling up with the aid of the coffee table. Her efforts took a long time and the doorbell rang again. Gritting her teeth, she finally stood up, wobbling to the front door and opening it in time to prevent Dina Peters from pushing the doorbell for a third time.

Dina stared miserably at the breathless Myrtle. She absently pushed her large, pink glasses to the top of her small nose. “Miss Myrtle, I’m so sorry. I wondered if the doorbell worked at all. You know how sometimes you just ring and ring a bell and no one comes? I wondered, “Should I ring the bell again? Should I knock? Is knocking worse than ringing?”

Dina’s tremulous voice warbled on while Myrtle panted and motioned her in. When she’d finally gotten her breath back she beamed at Dina as if she were delighted to see her. “Dina, dear! No worries. You’re not putting me out one bit. I’m not sure
why
I sat on Red’s ridiculous sofa when I know I have trouble getting off of it. I
must
remember to keep that cane nearby. Now, let’s see. Coca-Colas for both of us, right? And ginger snaps from the pantry.” Myrtle grimaced as Jack grew more insistent.

Dina offered, “I’ll follow the hollering and get him, Miss Myrtle.” She disappeared to the back of the house, but by the time Myrtle was returning with snacks and drinks, she was quickly returning with a suspicious Jack, who held Dina’s finger with one hand and clutched Dirty Doggy with the other. Jack let go of both when he saw the food, grabbing the cookies and disappearing back to his room to eat his treasure.

“I haven’t seen
Tomorrow’s Promise
for so long,” Dina breathed, settling down on the sofa next to Myrtle. “Did Tristan and Pamela get married yet?”

Myrtle sniffed. “
Married
? Sweetheart, they were married, had four kids and divorced.”

Dina was shocked. “In three weeks?”

“You know how fast things go on soaps.”

“Did Timothy break away from that satanic cult?”

Myrtle caught her up on the twisted lives of the major characters. Stone pounded on Sally’s door, demanding that she return to his abuse and dump the equally abusive Wesley.

At the commercial, Myrtle turned her attention back to Dina and blinked to see her face flushed with fury. “He can’t treat Sally that way,” she fumed. “Too bad Sally doesn’t have a friend like Tammy. Tammy saved me from my ex and really supported me. She’d been abused by Bo.”

“Tammy wasn’t abused, Dina. Bo’s a good and decent man.”

“No, Miss Myrtle. He’s wicked.” She sniffed. “Actually, that’s the reason why I’m here. I’m giving the money Tammy left me to the battered women’s shelter. I’m visiting my neighbors to raise money. I was planning on asking Elaine for donations, but I’ll hit you up since you’re here.”

Dina spoke with a passionate zeal that Myrtle had formerly only heard when she defended Tammy.

“You must be so pleased, dear, to have a bequest from Tammy. I know she mentioned it that day in the Beauty Box—of course, though, that was one of Tammy’s bad days.”

There was an angry flash in Dina’s eyes that she quickly hid. “I knew Tammy had set something aside for me, but I had no idea it was as much as it was.” Dina’s jaw set stubbornly. “She was a very generous person, you know.”

Myrtle nodded. “Well, and you are too, helping out the shelter. Let me pull out my pocketbook and write you a check.” Jack had wandered back in and was captivated by a fiery argument on the screen. Myrtle fumbled with the remote until Sesame Street came obligingly on.

Dina gave her an earnest smile. “Thanks for the check, Miss Myrtle. Donated items for the shelter would be great, too, if you or Elaine could pick up some extra tubes of toothpaste while you’re at the store or give us your old paperback books, clothes—things like that.” Myrtle promised to round up some contributions from the considerable clutter at her home and drop them off at the Beauty Box for Dina to take to the shelter.

Dina kept talking happily while Myrtle made out her check. Dina wasn’t so bad. Oh, she was a little annoying with her preachy voice and she certainly didn’t make the most of her appearance. But at least she’d finally hit on something that gave her a feeling of self-worth. And she hadn’t had to go through a man or a bullying friend to get it.

Actually, Dina might make a decent match for Bo, come to think of it. It was time to Do More Good. “Have you tried the diner yet, Dina?” Seeing Dina’s confusion, Myrtle added, “I bet if you asked Bo nicely, he’d let you put a big jar on the counter with a sign asking for spare change for the shelter.”

Dina looked horrified. “I couldn’t have anything to do with that man. Tammy told terrible stories about him.” She absently picked up Jack’s Dirty Doggy and gave it a squeeze, as if to get a little reassurance from the stuffed doll. Jack quietly said, “Mine,” under his breath, as if practicing for the moment when he’d have to get his friend back from the crazy visitor.

Stories was right. “Bo isn’t as bad as you thought and the diner is the most popular place in town. You’d raise a bundle for the new shelter.”

Reluctantly, Dina agreed. “Well, I don’t know. I guess I could. For the sake of the shelter, of course.” Dina thanked Myrtle and headed out the door. Jack yelled, “Mine!” and Myrtle realized that Dina had absconded with Dirty Doggy. After rescuing the stuffed animal from its kidnapper, Myrtle sat back down—in the armchair this time—and caught the rest of
Tomorrow’s Promise
while Jack miraculously snoozed on the quilt, a death-grip on Dirty Doggy.

Myrtle must have
dozed off, too, because she jumped violently at the shrill ring of the phone. Cursing and hoping that Jack was a sound sleeper, she heaved herself out of the armchair and fumbled for the cordless phone.

It was Sloan Jones from the newspaper. He was a former student of hers, much as she hated to admit it. The rag he edited wasn’t a glowing testament to her abilities as an English teacher. And she’d never in her wildest nightmares pictured Sloan in an English-related job as he stumbled through 10th grade English in her classroom. Nevertheless, everyone in town read the
Bradley Bugle
and it bore the hallmark of a successful newspaper: it was filled with local and regional advertisers. Red had arranged for his mother to have a column for the paper—he’d been trying to keep her busy, as usual. Recently, Sloan had treated her more as an investigative reporter, considering her closeness to Red…and, actually, to murder in general. It was the story she planned for his paper that provided her the most legitimate excuse for getting involved with the case.

“Mrs. Clover,” Sloan said in his carefully respectful voice, “I was wondering what you might know about this murder at the hair salon.” Myrtle smiled. Sloan always sounded like he was worried Myrtle was going to put him in afterschool detention. “Do you get your hair done there? Or maybe Red has talked about the case a little? I’ve got nothing, so I thought I’d check in with you.” He patted his balding head ruefully. “And I don’t have to get my hair cut too often.”

“Now Sloan, you weren’t going to cut me out of the story, were you? Because I don’t want to just be one of your sources—I want to write the whole article.”

“Of course, Mrs. Clover! No, I wouldn’t cut you out of a story, you know that. I just didn’t know if you
wanted
the story. Or if you even knew anything about it. Because you might get your hair done at the Cut-Ups, for all I know.”

“No, I’ve gone to the Beauty Box for years and years. I
do
have some very good information, I just need to get a little more before I write the story.”

“Are you about to crack the case?” Sloan sounded suddenly very cheerful. The paper had sold extra copies when Myrtle had her investigative story after the last Bradley murder. The article had even made it on the AP wire.

“Welllll….just between you and me? Yes. But don’t go telling anybody or you’re going to blow it.” Because Red would find out and shut her down pretty quickly. “But you could help me out, you know. Maybe you could share some of your thoughts about some of the suspects in the case.”

Sloan sounded surprised. “Sure. I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be, though. I don’t think I even get around town as much as you do…I follow the same patterns every day.”

One of those patterns, though, involved drinking after work. “I thought maybe you’d have some insights for me on Tammy, that’s all. Like I said, she’s done my hair for years, but I thought you might have seen a different side to her than I did.”

Sloan sighed. “Tammy was a hot mess for the last five or six months. Always gossiping about folks. I wondered if she was even telling the truth. I got half my copy for the gossip page from Tammy.”

“Did you see much of her?” Since they were both recreational drinkers, they had to have run into each other a lot.

“She was over at the bar and the ABC store a lot. I saw her the night she was murdered, too. She and Connor Walker were eating at the pizza parlor and I’d popped by to pick up my take-out order. Tammy had a huge fight with Connor. He’s a guy who usually keeps his temper, but he couldn’t keep a lid on it that night.”

“What happened?”

Myrtle could hear the groans of his wheeled chair as he shifted his considerable weight. “Tammy had obviously been drinking…a lot. Connor was talking to her in a real quiet voice to keep their conversation private. But Tammy was yelling back at him, repeating half of what he said. It sounded like he was breaking up with her. I guess he thought if he dumped her in a restaurant, she wouldn’t make a big scene. Tammy didn’t care about what people thought about her, though. She couldn’t believe he wanted to break up with her. She was cussing him out, calling him names.”

“Was Connor mad?” asked Myrtle.

“He kept his cool better than most men. He got quieter as she got louder. You could tell he was furious, though, because his face was red and his hands were shaking. Tammy threw her plate at him and he walked out.”

“That was probably the best thing to do.”

“Not as far as Tammy was concerned. She didn’t like being walked away from. Being left there made her madder and she kept throwing things until
she
was covered with food, too. Next thing I heard, she was dead.”

Myrtle was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Did you tell all this to the police?”

“Several times. I told it to Red and to the state police, too. I guess Connor could have fumed a while, then gone back later to the Beauty Box to finish the argument after he’d thought up some good comebacks. He might not have planned anything, but killed her in the heat of the moment.”

“What do you know about Dina?” asked Myrtle. “I’ve never really been able to figure her out.”

Sloan said, “I knew her ex was a bad guy. He came to the bar a few times. Dina did right to get away from him. But Tammy wasn’t much better, I don’t think. Dina always looked like she was sort of scared of Tammy. I think Tammy shouted at her a lot.”

“I think you’re right,” said Myrtle.

“Anyway, that’s all I know, and it’s not much.” It sure wasn’t. Most of that she’d already known.

“And Mrs. Clover? If you think of anything else you want to write a story about, or if you want to write something about the investigation so far, feel free. I really need more content for the next issue. Alma Jane ran off to Myrtle Beach without turning in her ‘remember when’ column and now the gardening column isn’t ready because Sue Perry is sick.”

“I’m sure that I’ll be wrapping this case up soon, Sloan. It’ll be a fantastic story, believe me. I’ll solve the case before your deadline.”

I
T WAS MOST
disappointing how efficient Elaine’s new cleaner was. Myrtle’s mind had clearly been poisoned by the indolent Puddin and her sluggish housekeeping. She’d expected that she and Jo would have a little chatting time while Jo stalled. Myrtle was
used
to stalling. What was truly baffling was Jo’s highly-developed work ethic.

Myrtle drummed her fingers on the kitchen table as Jo energetically attacked the kitchen floor—on her hands and knees, no less. She’d tried to bring up a little conversation, but Jo was so focused on the task at hand that she either grunted a response or offered something monosyllabic in reply.

Jo didn’t even glance up as Myrtle’s cell phone rang. “Hello?” Myrtle demanded, unable to keep the irritation from her voice. “What?” It was Red.