Murder on the Ballot Read online

  “Meaning financial support?”

  “That’s how I took it,” said Bonner.

  Myrtle nodded and made a note in her notebook. “All right. Thanks for this, Bonner. Now onto another matter.”

  Bonner looked longingly back at his car as if devoutly wishing he could be safely back inside it.

  Myrtle said in a severe voice, “This nonsense during the town council meetings has got to stop, Bonner.”

  Bonner’s face fell even lower than it had already been. “Nonsense?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. It reminds me of a poorly-behaved high school classroom while the teacher has stepped out of the room.”

  “And you’re the teacher returning to the room?” asked Bonner tentatively.

  “Precisely. Being pleasant and professional is vital. Think of the poor example the council is setting for the citizens of Bradley.”

  Bonner said wryly, “The problem is that at this point nobody knows how to walk it back.”

  “That’s why I have the perfect solution to the problem.” Myrtle turned to gesture to Miles who’d been watching Red with interest. “Video the meetings in the chamber. Someone like Miles could easily do it.”

  Miles, hearing his name suddenly called out, looked at Myrtle apprehensively.

  “Is Miles a video man then?” asked Bonner, looking at Miles thoughtfully.

  Hearing this, Miles quickly joined the conversation to see what he might be signed up for. “I’m not a video man. I have no videography experience.”

  “You were the official photographer for my campaign announcement,” said Myrtle.

  “And you saw how that went.”

  “That’s only because a riot ensued,” said Myrtle.

  “A riot with my thumb in the middle of it.”

  “At any rate,” said Myrtle impatiently, “I believe the issues currently present in the meetings would completely dissolve if the meetings are recorded for public consumption.”

  Bonner, who’d at first appeared like he was going to be totally resistant on anything Myrtle might propose, suddenly looked thoughtful. “Actually, that might be a good idea. There are a couple of members who sound completely sour and bad-humored during each meeting. I’m usually a pretty upbeat and positive person and these folks really ruin my good mood. I’ve started dreading our meetings.”

  Myrtle nodded. “So have I and I’m just reading about them in the paper.”

  “Videotaping the meetings. Yes. I do believe I’m going to propose that the very next chance I get. Thanks for this, Miss Myrtle. I hope your day starts to improve.”

  Myrtle noticed that Bonner scooted away as quickly as he could. She was raising her eyebrows in surprise at this when she saw Red approaching her. Was Bonner hesitant to speak with Red?

  Red appeared to notice Bonner’s speedy retreat as well. His eyes narrowed as he watched him hop into his BMW sedan and take off.

  Chapter Nine

  “Mama, you didn’t tell Bonner anything, did you?” he asked grimly.

  “Tell him things? Certainly not.”

  Red persisted. “I mean, did you tell him how Royce died?”

  “Of course I didn’t. What sort of idiot do you think I am? Really, Red.” Myrtle shot him a venomous look.

  “Okay, okay, just making sure.” Red held his hands up in surrender.

  Myrtle said, “So I’m guessing your concern about releasing information indicates that this is a suspicious death and that Royce didn’t have a heart attack on the stairs.”

  Red shook his head. “Despite his stressful experience last night, I don’t believe his heart was affected because of his debate with you.”

  Myrtle looked slightly miffed at this. “Perhaps it was a contributing factor.”

  Miles said slowly, “So there’s evidence that Royce was murdered?”

  Red gave them a cautious look as if weighing what to tell them. “Well, since Mama has already had an up-close look at Royce, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you as long as you keep the information to yourselves. I don’t even want staircases mentioned in any way. You can say Royce is dead and you can say Royce died at town hall, but leave it at that. Yes, there’s evidence that Royce was murdered. As I said, I don’t think he had a medical episode. I also don’t believe he stumbled on the stairs—at least, not until he was hit on the head.”

  “Well, in my opinion, he was overly fond of taking the stairs. Perhaps if he’d taken the elevator, this wouldn’t have happened at all.” Her voice was slightly smug.

  Red twisted his mouth skeptically. “I’m of the opinion that if somebody wanted to take Royce out, a little thing like being on an elevator wouldn’t stop him.” He gave Myrtle a severe look. “You didn’t seem too happy with Royce yourself last night.”

  “Did you see how he treated Erma last night? He was unbelievably rude.” Myrtle sniffed.

  Miles hid a smile. He seemed amused to have Myrtle suddenly turn into Erma’s defender after so many years of avoiding the woman.

  Red shrugged. “It was a debate. Usually folks aren’t all that polite during the course of them.” He paused. “To me it seemed as though Erma’s feelings were hurt. Is that the impression you got?”

  His voice was deliberately casual, but this didn’t fool Myrtle. “You think Erma is a suspect?”

  Myrtle, although not wanting Erma to be abused in a public forum, didn’t have as many reservations about her being arrested and carted off to jail.

  Red sighed. “Mama, I just don’t know. How do you think Erma would respond after being attacked like that?”

  Myrtle and Miles looked at each other for a moment. Finally, Myrtle said reluctantly, “Well, I think she’d react pretty much like she did last night—embarrassed and sad. I don’t think she’d attack and kill the man responsible. Do you?”

  Red shook his head. “It just doesn’t seem very likely. I’ll have to speak with her anyway, of course. I left the same time y’all did last night, of course. Did you happen to notice anything? Hear anything? Any arguments or bad words between Royce and anyone else?”

  Myrtle was very annoyed that she hadn’t noticed anything. She’d mostly not noticed anything because she’d still been so miffed at Royce. “No, nothing. How about you, Miles?”

  Miles considered this seriously before regretfully saying, “I’m afraid not. We were preoccupied with the elevator and the weather. We wanted to get out of there before it started storming.”

  A car pulled up and Red said, “Here’s Perkins.”

  Lieutenant Perkins was with the North Carolina state police. He had brown hair that was closely-cropped to his head in military fashion. His posture was always ramrod straight. He had a very measured walk and way of speaking. Myrtle’s favorite thing to do was to give him a friendly, motherly hug to totally knock him off-balance. Which she did.

  He gave a little jerk of surprise, like he usually did, and then settled in for the hug and gave her one back while Red rolled his eyes.

  “Mrs. Clover,” said Perkins, giving her a warm smile. “What a pleasure to see you and Mr. Bradford.”

  “Oh, it’s our pleasure to be around our favorite policeman, isn’t it Miles?” said Myrtle, beaming at Perkins.

  Miles gave Red an apologetic look at the “favorite policeman” line.

  Perkins said, “I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough morning so far. This discovery must have been very upsetting for you.”

  Red said, “Unfortunately, the victim, Royce Rollins, was Mama’s political opponent.”

  Perkins tried his best to look as if the fact Myrtle Clover was engaged in politics was unsurprising. Or, perhaps, he did find it unsurprising. He was a very intuitive man.

  “So your relationship was complicated,” said Perkins.

  “Our relationship was nonexistent,” said Myrtle with a sniff. “Plus, he cheated in high school.”

  Perkins acted as if this wasn’t a non-sequitur at all, giving a thoughtful nod. “Apparently, Mr. Rol
lins might have been something of an unsavory character?”

  “Precisely,” spat out Myrtle.

  Miles and Red looked at each other.

  Miles offered, “He was very successful locally, was involved in the community, and was quite influential.”

  Myrtle frowned. “He can still be unsavory, Miles. Unsavory people can live in fine houses.” She looked back at Perkins. “He behaved in a quite despicable manner at the debate last night. You remember Erma Sherman?”

  Perkins nodded, keeping his face carefully blank in case Erma could somehow be a friend of Myrtle’s.

  “Well, Erma is a complete disaster, of course. The sort of person you avoid in the grocery store if you spot her before she spots you. But Royce was mean to her last night. I absolutely cannot abide meanness.”

  Red said smoothly, “And with that, I’m going to sweep Lieutenant Perkins away. There is a crime scene to view, after all.”

  Perkins gave Myrtle a polite smile and followed Red off to the stairs.

  Miles said, “I suppose we should go ahead and leave. I don’t think we’re going to get any more information here. Besides, Red will need to see about informing the family.”

  Myrtle and Miles headed to the car. When Miles started the engine, Myrtle said, “The family. You know, the family wasn’t at the debate last night, were they? Jenny and Scotty? I don’t believe I saw them there, did you?”

  Miles said, “I’m not sure I’d recognize Scotty. But Jenny was definitely not there. I noticed that.”

  “You know what that means. She didn’t support Royce. Or she was fed-up with Royce,” declared Myrtle, her mind already off and running with this new line of thought.

  “It might not have anything to do with a lack of support. Maybe she had a stomachache. Or maybe she had some sort of important engagement. She’s very active in her volunteering, as I recall,” said Miles. He paused. “Where are we heading, by the way?”

  “Well, we can’t go see Jenny and Scotty yet because they won’t even have heard about Royce. I suppose we should swing by and check on Wanda. Maybe she wants to join us at Bo’s Diner.”

  Miles obediently set off in the direction of Myrtle’s house. He gave her a curious glance. “How are things going, by the way? With Wanda being there, I mean.”

  “Absolutely fine. She looks so much healthier, doesn’t she? Well-rested. Except for this morning, of course. That was my fault, though. I taught Wanda how to play cards last night.”

  “That must have been interesting,” said Miles.

  “It was. She caught on really quickly. But I was sleepy and wanted to head off to bed, so I showed her how to play solitaire. When I woke up for the day, she hadn’t turned in to bed yet.” Myrtle made a clucking noise and shook her head.

  “Wow. I never would have thought she’d be caught up in it like that.”

  “If you think about it, though, she doesn’t really have anything remotely resembling entertainment in that shack she shares with Dan,” said Myrtle. “Of course, she’d latch onto the first even vaguely fun thing she came across.”

  Miles frowned. “I don’t think I even remember seeing a television over there.”

  Myrtle shrugged. “Even if they had one, how often do they have electricity? And they certainly wouldn’t be able to afford cable.” She looked at her watch. “Oh goodness. I forgot that Puddin was supposed to come and clean this morning.”

  “Well, you know how Puddin is. It’s extremely unlikely that she’s over there. Anyway, Wanda could have let her in, even if Puddin did show up.”

  When they reached Myrtle’s house, Myrtle said, “I’ll just run in and see if Wanda wants to come with us. Do you want to stay in the car and wait?”

  Miles nodded and Myrtle headed inside. She was greeted by the sight of Puddin and Wanda staring, mesmerized, at the TV. Puddin started, guiltily, putting a bag of Myrtle’s potato chips behind her back. Wanda looked up and gave Myrtle a bemused smile.

  Myrtle could hear the sound of Puddin’s favorite morning game show in the background and the audience cheering as a screaming contestant won a prize.

  “Puddin, what’s going on in here?” Myrtle put her hands on her hips.

  Puddin’s pasty-white face was sullen. “Just showin’ Wanda my game show. Figured maybe she needed to go on one of them shows.”

  “Why on earth should she go on a game show?” Myrtle couldn’t think of any less-likely candidate for a Hollywood game show than Wanda.

  Puddin stared at Myrtle as if she was very, very dim. “Because she can see the future.”

  Myrtle frowned. “Does that help with knowing trivia? I don’t think it does.”

  Puddin glared at her. “It don’t hurt!”

  Wanda seemed to be completely entranced by the game show, at any rate. Fortunately, a commercial came on right at that moment and Myrtle was able to briefly win her attention. “Wanda, would you like to go to Bo’s Diner with Miles and me?”

  Wanda hesitated. She might have blushed a little.

  Myrtle said, “Or have you eaten already? Perhaps you had breakfast with Puddin?”

  Puddin pushed the bag of chips further behind her. There was a distinct crunching sound as the chips were crushed into bits.

  Myrtle didn’t want to create a dilemma for Wanda. She had enough of those in her everyday life. “How about this—I’ll pick up some take-out for you for lunch. Miles and I will eat breakfast and I can get some hot dogs to-go for you for later. Does that sound good?”

  Wanda nodded, looking relieved. “Thanks, Myrtle.” Then she furrowed her brow. “You might run across somebody at the diner you need to talk to.”

  Myrtle gave her a big smile. “Excellent. All the more reason for me to head on my way.” Also, the commercial break was nearly over and she anticipated losing both Puddin’s and Wanda’s attention. She said severely to Puddin, “You need to get to work, since you’re here. There’s dust everywhere. My baseboards need cleaning, too.”

  Puddin said casually, “My back’s thrown out. Them baseboards is gonna have to wait.”

  Myrtle gritted her teeth. “Well, I’m sure your back won’t object to the dusting, vacuuming, and other cleaning that needs to be done around here.”

  Wanda pulled her attention away from the game show with some difficulty. “Myrtle, I’ll git those baseboards for ya.”

  Myrtle shook her head. “You’re a guest, Wanda. That’s not your job.”

  “Might as well put me to work a little,” she said with her gap-toothed grin.

  Puddin said, “Remember, you’re gonna owe me some money.”

  “No. You’re here because I paid you once and you had to leave because of some perceived emergency. You owe me.”

  Puddin scowled.

  Myrtle headed back to Miles’s car.

  “No Wanda?” he asked.

  “We’re going to pick up take-out for her while we’re there. Puddin has totally corrupted her. They’re in there watching game shows.”

  “Sounds likely,” said Miles as he drove toward the diner.

  “Wanda did say that we were going to see someone at the diner that we needed to speak with. I’m wondering who that might be,” said Myrtle with a frown. “Hopefully we’ll be able to tell who it is on sight. Otherwise, it would be awkward walking up and talking to a whole bunch of people who end up not being important.”

  “Plus, we might look very silly doing it.” Miles gave a small shudder at the thought of questioning everyone eating their breakfast at the diner.

  Myrtle said, “We wouldn’t. People forgive senior citizens. It’s our superpower. They’d simply think we were being friendly.”

  “Or senile. Which, speaking as your campaign manager, wouldn’t be very helpful for your bid for the town council seat.”

  Myrtle snorted. “Everyone knows I’ve got all of my marbles.”

  “And then some,” muttered Miles. “I think perhaps you’ve swiped other people’s marbles along the way.”

  The di
ner was very busy, as it usually was. Miles had to make a loop twice to find a parking spot and was finally reduced to creeping along behind a woman who seemed to be heading to the parking lot. He quickly took her spot as soon as she backed out.

  As soon as they entered the diner, Myrtle was already scanning the restaurant to see who might be important to speak with.

  “Surely Lucy Williams isn’t important,” she muttered. She glared at the unaware old woman who was taking a large bite of a biscuit. “She only thinks she’s important. Those are two entirely different things.”

  Miles said, “Sloan is over there.”

  Sloan certainly was. He was hastily finishing up his breakfast and taking wary looks in their direction. When he saw Myrtle and Miles had noticed him, he blushed scarlet and gave a hesitant wave.

  Myrtle pursed her lips. “I hardly think Wanda would believe speaking with Sloan is important. Of course, it’s important for me to notify him about my article. Otherwise, I can’t see any good in speaking with him on this particular morning.”

  “What article?”

  “The one I’m writing about Royce’s death, of course! Pay attention, Miles.”

  Myrtle continued scanning the room, noting and dismissing all sorts of people. Then she grabbed Miles’s sleeve. “There’s Scotty Rollins.”

  Miles shifted uncomfortably and started shaking his head. “No way. He probably doesn’t even know about his dad. We can’t go over there and speak with him, Myrtle.”

  “Wanda said it was important.” Myrtle’s voice was stubborn. “I’m not going to traumatize the young man, you know. I’m simply going to feel out what he does know and then casually talk to him about things.”

  The hostess told them they could sit wherever they wanted. Myrtle said, “Okay, we need to split up. You go sit at that table near Scotty so no one else gets it. I’ll hurry over and tell Sloan about the article.”

  Miles reluctantly walked over to the empty table beside Scotty and Myrtle approached Sloan, who looked nervous.

  “Didn’t you like what I wrote about the debate last night?” he sounded breathless.