A Body in the Backyard

by Elizabeth Spann Craig

  Chapter Thirteen

  The best thing about Annette’s visit was the way she’d given Myrtle an excuse to talk to Annette’s husband. Myrtle hadn’t fancied calling Silas up with an electrical problem for him to take a look at—that would have set her back at least a hundred dollars---just for him to walk through her door.

  Now all Myrtle had to do is to “find” Annette’s missing pocketbook and deliver it to Silas, along with a few well-phrased and pointed questions.

  Myrtle was about to pick up the phone and see if Miles wanted to go with her to the store to buy a cheap purse, when she hesitated. Miles had been icy on the way back from the dentist. She’d better let him sulk it all out of his system before she asked him for another favor. Miles could nurse hurt feelings much longer than a woman could.

  Still, the thought of walking to Brogan’s, the small, downtown department store, wasn’t particularly appealing to Myrtle. The last couple of days (and accompanying wakeful nights) had tired her out more than she wanted to admit. She’d give Elaine a call. Maybe Elaine would be up for a short shopping trip, or at least up for an opportunity to take some more appallingly bad pictures for the Bradley Bugle.

  Fifteen minutes later, Elaine’s van pulled into her driveway. “I’m always ready to get out of the house,” she said, as Myrtle climbed into the front seat “but you know we’re likely to have more of an adventure than you planned. I have Jack with me. Of course.”

  Myrtle turned to look into the back of the van and saw Jack beaming at her as he clutched his well-worn Dirty Doggy doll. “He looks like an absolute angel,” said Myrtle. “I don’t think he’s planning to take us on any types of adventures.”

  Jack threw Dirty Doggy at her and laughed.

  Elaine sighed. “Sweet and sour. That’s Jack’s mood today. I know you mentioned a short trip to the store. It could possibly end up being even shorter than you’d planned. What is it that you’re shopping for again?”

  “A new pocketbook,” said Myrtle, holding Dirty Doggy up and making him walk and trip up on the air as Jack crowed loudly in response.

  “A pocketbook?” asked Elaine, shooting Myrtle a sideways look. “Don’t you have that huge shelf in your bedroom closet that’s filled to bursting with large, navy purses?”

  “Now, now, Elaine. They’re not just navy, they’re black and gray and beige, too,” said Myrtle. Neutrals went with everything.

  Elaine was clearly planning to ask more questions about the unusual pocketbook hunting expedition, but they were already at the department store. Plus, Jack was contemplating having an enormous meltdown.

  “Did you bring your camera?” asked Myrtle. “There should be gobs of opportunities to take pictures at Brogan’s.”

  “I figured I was juggling enough today,” said Elaine. “With Jack being in an unpredictable mood and all.” She lifted him out of the car and put him directly into the stroller that she’d quickly unfolded.

  They walked into the ancient store and traveled up the elevator to the second floor, which had women’s clothes and accessories. The elevator still had an equally ancient elevator attendant who opened the door manually for them when they arrived on the second floor. Myrtle swore she remembered the same attendant when she’d been a child at the store.

  Elaine started walking to the large, neutral handbag section. “This one looks like you, Myrtle,” she said, holding up a likely candidate. She rummaged on the inside, pulling out some of the paper that filled the bag. “It’s got lots of pockets for your peppermints. I know how much you love stashing those away.”

  Myrtle looked to the very back, way-off corner of the store. “Actually, I think I’m going to look at the bargain table. You know—see what’s drastically reduced.”

  Elaine shrugged and put down the pocketbook, following behind Myrtle with the stroller.

  Myrtle gave the table a critical eye. What was the cheapest pocketbook she could find? Then she could fill it with some junk from her house and it would make the perfect prop to take to Silas Dawson’s house. Everything on the table was an additional sixty percent off the lowest markdown…and she saw that one was marked down to ten dollars. She picked it up. It had a cow print on it, and fuchsia flowers near the pink straps.

  “This will do,” muttered Myrtle. Especially for only a few dollars.

  Elaine stared at the purse. “That is the most hideous pocketbook I’ve ever seen. All right, Myrtle, what’s up? I know you’re not buying something like that for yourself.”

  Myrtle filled her in quickly. Elaine said, “I was wondering how everything was going with the case. But why not just use one of the millions of bags you’ve got in your closet?”

  “Silas would suspect something if I brought one of those over, and said I thought it belonged to Annette. My pocketbooks are roomy, comfortable, and perfect for me—and they wouldn’t work at all for somebody like Annette. Plus,” said Myrtle with a sigh, “they look like old lady purses.”

  “Nothing wrong with that!” said Elaine emphatically. Then she added, “What are you hoping to find out from Silas when you see him?”

  “Well, it would be lovely if he just gave up and told me that he was responsible for killing two people. Somehow, though, I’m thinking that probably won’t happen. I’d love to find out if he has an alibi for the murders. And I’d also like to hear him unload about Charles Clayborne—maybe give me some more insight into the guy.”

  “I thought that Miles was Charles Clayborne’s cousin,” said Elaine with a frown. “Wasn’t he able to fill you in about him?”

  “Not particularly,” said Myrtle dryly. “He was more concerned with making sure that I knew he really had nothing to do with Charles and that he didn’t approve of him. Other than that, it was all kind of vague.”

  “It doesn’t sound like Silas Dawson exactly had a close relationship with Charles either,” pointed out Elaine. Jack was starting to struggle to get out of the stroller now to wreak havoc in the store. “He was just trying to keep himself and his wife away from Charles.”

  “Maybe, but people must have known Charles from when he grew up in Bradley. Silas Dawson is a little older than Charles, but they probably would have been in school at the same time—maybe he was just a grade or two ahead of Charles. I want to see what I find out.” She watched as Jack started determinedly trying to unlatch his seatbelt in the stroller.

  “I think he’s almost figured out the seatbelt,” said Elaine with a sigh. “We probably will want to wrap this up pretty soon or else Jack is going to be making a big scene. Have you decided on that purse?” She gave a shudder, looking at it.

  “This is definitely the one. Just based on the price point and the fact that it’s definitely not an old lady pocketbook,” said Myrtle.

  “It’s not really an anybody pocketbook,” said Elaine as they walked to the checkout.

  Back at home, Myrtle threw a few odds and ends into the pocketbook to make it more plausible. Some tissues, spare change, an old lipstick, and a sprinkling of peppermints. Then she decided, after reflection, that the peppermints might be another tip-off that it was really a purse that Myrtle had concocted. She replaced the mints with a pack of crackers.

  At slightly after seven that evening, Myrtle set out to visit with Silas Dawson. Elaine had not only volunteered to drive her there, she’d practically insisted. She stayed in the car with Jack and assured Myrtle that Red hadn’t gotten back from work yet, so he wouldn’t wonder what Elaine and Myrtle were up to. And with the baby.

  Myrtle carefully walked up the front walkway and rang the doorbell. When there wasn’t any answer, she knocked on the door, in case the doorbell wasn’t working.

  After a couple more minutes, Silas finally appeared at the door. He raised his eyebrows when he saw Myrtle standing there. “Yes? Miss Myrtle, isn’t it? Something I can help you with?” His expression said that he couldn’t really envision what that might possibly be.

  Myrtle took a deep breath and held up the tacky bag.
“Annette told me that she thought she might have left her pocketbook at my house during the funeral reception. Is this it?”

  Silas actually took a half step back as if trying to escape from the purse. “I don’t really take much note of Annette’s pocketbooks,” he said in a growling voice, “but I’m positive that’s not one of hers. Positive.” He looked relieved when Myrtle put it back in the plastic grocery bag.

  Then Silas frowned again. “Annette didn’t tell me she’d left her purse at your house.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “She wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

  Myrtle was trying to figure out how to carefully angle for information when Silas abruptly asked her, “You knew she was having an affair with Charles Clayborne, didn’t you?” His eyes narrowed as he searched her face for the truth.

  Myrtle sighed. “That’s true. But it’s not like everyone in the town knows it. I just happened to talk to somebody who’d heard about it.”

  “And then that person would have told another person, then another,” said Silas. He groaned. “The whole thing is just stupid. Annette loves me.” His tone was more questioning than sure, though.

  “Of course she does,” said Myrtle soundly. Especially now that Charles was gone.

  Silas seemed to be able to tell which way her thoughts were heading. “But hey—I didn’t have anything to do with Charles’s death. I didn’t even really know the guy. And there were plenty of other people who didn’t like Charles.”

  “Who?” asked Myrtle, leaning in on her cane.

  “Well, Lee Woosley for one,” said Silas.

  “Of course, he’s dead now, too,” reminded Myrtle.

  “Oh yeah,” said Silas in a deflated voice. Then he added quickly, “But he still could have killed Charles before he died. Then somebody else killed Lee.”

  “Clearly,” said Myrtle, holding back a sigh. Silas didn’t seem like the brightest bulb in the box. Which was weird, because electricians were usually bright. No pun intended.

  “Do you know why Lee hated Charles so much?” asked Myrtle. “I heard about the fight at the poker game. But it seems extreme to go hunt the man down because he cheated at poker.”

  “That’s the kind of man Charles Clayborne was, though,” said Silas bitterly. “He was a cheater. He made my wife cheat on me, he cheated at cards, and I bet he cheated at business, too. Yeah, that can make somebody mad enough to murder. But Lee had other reasons, too.”

  Myrtle just held her breath and waited. Silas was chatty, and she wondered if that might have something to do with the faint whiff of beer she’d detected.

  Sure enough, he kept right on talking. “I remember Charles from way back. We were never friends, though, like I said. But people talked about him sometimes, and I saw him around the high school. He was a bad guy even then. He’d brag about how he cheated on tests and outsmarted the system, that kind of thing. He acted like only stupid people were the ones who would follow all the rules, study, and get good grades the old-fashioned way.”

  Silas continued, “He also dated a whole slew of different girls. One of them was Peggy. Peggy Woosley, she was then. Peggy was a friend of my little sister, so I did know her. Real sweet girl. You could tell that she thought that Charles Clayborne hung the moon.”

  “And I’m guessing that Charles didn’t exactly return her affections,” said Myrtle. She was liking Charles less and less. No wonder Miles had practically disavowed being related to him.

  “Of course not. But, regardless, she was head-over-heels with the dolt. He took advantage of that fact, too, apparently. The night before I heard about Charles’s murder,” said Silas, lowering his voice, “Lee was trying to make me feel better about Annette’s affair with Charles. We were sitting in a bar and Lee told me that Charles had gotten Peggy pregnant their senior year of high school.”

  Myrtle’s eyes widened. This must have been a well-kept secret for her not to have heard a thing about it.

  “Charles convinced Peggy that he was going to marry her and that they were going to have this perfect little life together. But he ran away from Bradley the minute he graduated. Wonder if he had a suspicion that Peggy was going to have a baby?” Silas shook his head.

  “This is such a small town that I’m shocked that nobody knew about this,” said Myrtle, knitting her brows.

  “Oh, they knew Peggy was pregnant, all right,” said Silas with a short laugh. “But they thought it was Jim Neighbors’ baby. Remember how she used to be married to him?”

  Myrtle nodded slowly. “She got divorced ages ago, didn’t she?”

  “A couple of years after they married. The baby was just two. Jim had always had a fondness for Peggy, and Lee sweetened the pot by offering him a job doing repairs and light contracting with him,” said Silas.

  “I see. That would have avoided a big scandal here in Bradley, for sure,” said Myrtle.

  “The funny thing,” said Silas, “is that Peggy never forgot Charles. She still loved him, after all that, according to her dad.” He stopped and sighed. “That part actually maybe I do understand. I still love Annette, too, no matter if she has been running around on me. Apparently, Peggy tried to get back together with Charles as soon as he showed back up here in town.”

  The poor, confused thing. How could she not see the kind of man Charles was?

  “Lee told me that he strung her along again, same as last time. Then Peggy started hearing that Charles was seeing Annette. And probably some other women, too. She was totally devastated. Peggy finally told him the truth, too—that her daughter, now almost eighteen, was his,” said Silas.

  Myrtle leaned forward more on her cane. Her feet, never very cooperative, were starting to actively hurt now, but she ignored it and hung on to Silas’s every word.

  “Miss Myrtle, you should have seen old Lee’s face when he was telling me this story. It was red as all get-out. Don’t know if he was more mad, or frustrated, or about to cry. Lee told me that Charles laughed when Peggy told him about his daughter. Then he scoffed about it—saying that he didn’t believe her. Apparently, Peggy ran off back home and cried her eyes out,” said Silas, shaking his head. “That Charles sure was some character. Red’s going to have quite a time figuring out who did it. Half the town wanted Charles dead.

  Myrtle closed the van door and buckled up as Elaine started driving her back home. “I take it Silas didn’t claim the hideous handbag,” she noted drily. Jack was talking to himself in the backseat and Myrtle turned to smile at him.

  “No, he sure didn’t. But he did tell me why Lee hated Charles Clayborne. It had a whole lot to do with his daughter Peggy and not much to do with cheating at poker.” Myrtle filled Elaine in on the way home. “I can’t imagine that Lee would have wanted Charles to get back together with his daughter—but I bet he wanted him to put some money up to support her college tuition or other care.”

  “Wow,” said Elaine finally. “And people think that nothing happens in small towns.”

  “The whole parade of human drama happens in small towns,” said Myrtle. “It just happens on a small scale, that’s all.”

  “So what I’m getting from this tale of woe,” said Elaine slowly, “is that Peggy definitely had a motive to kill Charles. She’d put her heart and soul into loving him and she was coldly and cruelly rejected; not once, but twice.”

  “Revenge is surely a powerful motivator,” said Myrtle. “Don’t forget about her father, either. Lee Woosley was plenty mad at Charles Clayborne. How much can a father really take before he starts taking it out on the guy who’s at the bottom of the mess?”

  “But if he killed Charles, then who killed Lee?”

  “What if Peggy did it out of anger? What if, no matter how irrationally, she was still crazy about Charles? She might have struck out against her father for killing the man she loved so much,” said Myrtle.

  Elaine sighed. “I guess so. It just seems very far-fetched to me.”

  “I’m amazed at just how often life resemb
les my soap opera. Tomorrow’s Promise really hits the nail on the head sometimes. It’s more like watching a documentary than a daytime drama.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Elaine as they pulled up to Myrtle’s driveway. “Looks like you’ve got some company.”