A Myrtle Clover Cozy Mystery

Chapter 1-1

Chapter One

Saturday

“The hole is too deep, Dusty. Fill it in a little.”

Dusty, Myrtle’s ancient yardman, leaned on his shovel and glared at her. “You done told me to make the hole deeper.”

“Yes, but not that deep, Dusty. Pay attention! The poor tree will perish if you bury it. Its root collar will be under dirt.”

thatDusty appeared to be gritting his teeth as he tossed a shovelful of red clay back into the hole he was digging.

Myrtle’s friend Miles, who was sitting beside Myrtle, winced in sympathy. “You might be wearing Dusty out,” he murmured.

“Dusty might be wearing me out,” retorted Myrtle. “Every time he puts the tree into the hole, it’s either practically underground or it’s perched on a mound of dirt. There must be a halfway point.”

me“I kin hear you, you know,” muttered Dusty. “Nuthin’ wrong with my ears.” He narrowed his eyes at Myrtle. “Anyway, the most important thing is to water the tree. This ain’t the right time of year to be planting ‘em.”

water“I had no control over that, as I mentioned. I won the raffle for garden club and was presented with this wispy dogwood. I’m going to put all of my considerable energies into ensuring the tree does well. I’m very motivated. Besides, it’s a perfectly acceptable time of year to plant. I looked it up online.”

“Fall is better,” said Dusty. “Plus, this is the same spot you had another tree. An’ that one died.” He put the tree back in and looked questioningly at Myrtle.

“Now the tree is sitting up too high. Take just a smidge of soil back out again.”

Miles looked uneasily at Dusty’s stormy expression. He said, “Let’s go inside for a spell, Myrtle.”

“But we’re having a picnic.” Myrtle indicated their plates which held pimento cheese sandwiches and boiled peanuts they’d gotten from Crazy Dan, a somewhat unstable individual who was their friend’s brother.

“We can bring the food inside.”

Myrtle stood up and then looked at Dusty who was now covered with red clay. “I do have some food for you, Dusty. Pimento cheese.”

Dusty spat into the soil. “Too exotic for me.”

Myrtle stared at him. “I didn’t have you pegged as a picky eater. Puddin isn’t creative enough to handle a picky eater.”

Dusty was now glaring at her again. “I make my own meals.”

“That can’t be true. I’ve heard Puddin raving over the chicken pot pies she makes.”

Dusty grunted. “Sometimes I eat what she makes. Sometimes I eat my own food, and she eats her own food.”

“Hm. Well, to each his own. So no pimento cheese for you.”

“Nope,” said Dusty. “I will take some of them boiled peanuts, though.”

“Done. I’ll set them out on the kitchen counter in a bowl.”

Dusty started shaking his head. “Gotta eat ‘em outside. If I track red clay into yer kitchen, Puddin’ll have my hide.”

Puddin was Myrtle’s lackadaisical housekeeper. “Considering it would be tough for me to even persuade Puddin to come over on the premise of cleaning, I have to agree with you. I’d end up having to scrub the floor myself and at my age, the floor and I aren’t particularly well-acquainted.”

premiseSo Myrtle put together a large bowl of boiled peanuts, and Miles stuck them outside on the bench where he and Myrtle had been sitting.

“Are we eating in the kitchen?” asked Miles.

“Let’s bring the food into the living room. We can watch our soap opera.”

“I do wish you’d stop saying that.”

“Why? It is our soap opera. Stop pretending you don’t enjoy Tomorrow’s Promise as much as I do.”

isTomorrow’s PromiseIt was true. Miles had, against all odds, gotten hooked on a show that included tropes like alien abductions, returns from the dead, and amnesia.

“Perhaps it’s true,” admitted Miles. “But it should stay our secret.”

Myrtle liked having secrets. “I’ll work on that.”

She turned on their show, which she’d taped earlier. They tried to stay one day behind on Tomorrow’s Promise so that they could watch it whenever it suited them to. When the show opened, there seemed to be a lot going on. Adelaide and Benjamin were having a terrible argument about going to the South of France. The argument was taking place in the hospital where Benjamin had just had brain surgery.

Tomorrow’s Promise“This seems especially dramatic,” said Miles. “Surely Adelaide can see their vacation can’t possibly proceed. Benjamin might not even make it out of the hospital.”

Myrtle paused the show so they could discuss the issue. “But remember that Adelaide believes Benjamin is conjuring excuses to avoid spending time with her because he’s having an affair.”

Miles raised his eyebrows. “Brain surgery as an excuse?”

“Well, perhaps Adelaide is a bit warped. But Benjamin isn’t helping matters.”

She hit play again and the show continued. As was the norm with the soap opera, the scene ended with Adelaide and Benjamin staring meaningfully at each other. Another scene started, this one involving a woman who’d been kidnapped and was being held for ransom by a masked bandit.

There was a sudden, loud knock on the door. Myrtle and Miles both jumped violently.

“Mercy!” said Myrtle. “Who on earth is that?”

She got up to find out, and Miles quickly took the remote and turned off the television so the evidence of his interest in soap operas wouldn’t be on display.

“Red!” bellowed Myrtle when she opened the door to see her son standing there. “What on earth are you doing? You nearly scared the spit out of me.”

Red glowered at her. “You nearly scared the spit out of me. You didn’t answer your phone. I called you. A lot.”

me“Did you? Well, I clearly didn’t hear it. You might have called when Miles and I were sitting in the backyard with Dusty.”

“What about your landline phone? I tried calling that one, too,” said Red. He finally noticed Miles was there and bobbed his head politely at him. “Hi there, Miles.”

“Hi Red.”

Myrtle put her hands on her hips. “I had the landline disconnected. All I was getting was spam calls. At first the calls were almost entertaining. I’d act as if I were someone who could easily be duped and I could tell the unscrupulous person on the other end was getting very excited. Then I’d hang up on them.”

“Sounds like loads of fun.” Red rolled his eyes.

“It was. But then the number of calls grew, and it became completely untenable. Day and night. So I had the phone disconnected.” Myrtle shrugged coolly.

“I don’t like it,” said Red. He had his own hands on his hips now. “I want you to be able to reach a phone easily in case you need to.”

“Fortunately, I just happen to have a phone I can fit into my pocket. Who needs a landline?”

Red said, “But you don’t put it in your pocket. It’s inside when you’re outside. Or it’s at home when you’re at the store. It’s a problem.” He turned to Miles. “Do you have your phone on you right now?”

don’tyouMiles gave Myrtle an apologetic look before pulling his own phone out of the pocket of his khaki pants.

Myrtle narrowed her eyes at him. “Traitor,” she murmured. Then she said blithely, “Well, clearly, all is well that ends well. I wasn’t in any danger. I was watching Dusty butcher the planting of the tree I won at garden club. Then Miles and I were inside watching our soap opera.”

Miles winced. Clearly, Myrtle was getting him back.

Red seemed to be hiding a smile at the mention of their show.

“Anyway,” said Myrtle, “I could just open a window and holler if I needed you. You’re right across the street.”

“What if you fell and couldn’t reach the phone? Your hips are over eighty years old. They might not take well to falling.”

Myrtle scowled at him. “What if you leave my hips out of this? I don’t like it when you start talking as if parts of me were some sort of disembodied things. Besides, have you forgotten about this?” She waved her medic alert necklace at him. “Or have you just forgotten it’s not mere jewelry?”

thisRed now seems more subdued. “Actually, I did forget about it. But I still think you should have your phone on you. In one of your pockets, just like Miles does.”

“I don’t happen to have any pockets in these pants. I blame this fact on male fashion designers. I’d rather have the pockets but the designers disagree.”

haveRed now looked eager to leave, since his point had been made. “Fine. All right, I’ll leave you alone. And I’ll go see if I can find more pants for you that have pockets.”

“Good.”

“Maybe some cargo pants.” Red’s lips quirked at the thought.

Myrtle glared at him as he walked out the door. “He’s so very annoying.”

Miles said, “On the upside, he does care about you. He wants to make sure you’re all right.”

“He’s just more focused on his responsibility than he is on me. He doesn’t like falling down on the job. Anyway, it’s the final straw. Before Dusty leaves, I’ll have him pull my gnomes out. Particularly that giant one that Red despises so much.”

Miles was unsurprised at the mention of gnomes. He handed her the remote. “What makes it the final straw?”

“Red wants to come along on my doctor visits now. As if I were a child! Can you imagine?”

Miles said mildly, “I’ve always read that it’s good to have a patient advocate with you during appointments.”

“He’s not advocating during the visits, though. He’s being an alarmist. He brings up everything that could possibly be wrong with me—stuff he’s looked up on the internet. He questions my doctor as if he were a suspect in a murder investigation. My memory, my heart, my lungs—he inquires about everything. He looked up that rash I had on my arm online and was convinced it was some sort of dreadful pox. It’s all very irritating.”

Dusty stuck his head through the kitchen door. “I’m leavin’.”

“Not yet! I need you to pull out the gnomes.”

Dusty balked. “That weren’t what you told me when you called me.”

“Yes, I know. But Red has committed more transgressions. The gnomes are entirely necessary.”

Dusty muttered something under his breath that Myrtle was glad she couldn’t hear.

“You don’t have to take all of them out. But I definitely want that big guy to be front and center. Directly in front of Red’s house.”

“Poor Elaine,” murmured Miles. He often felt sorry for Red’s wife when Myrtle had the gnomes pulled out.

“Elaine likes the big gnome,” said Myrtle. “That’s because Jack loves it. My grandson, of course, is remarkable. Elaine says Jack looks out his window and sings a goodnight song to the giant gnome before he goes to sleep.”