Chapter Seven
The incessant baritone baying made Myrtle turn on her bedside light. Who could sleep with the Hound of the Baskervilles roaming Bradley? No wonder Jack still needed afternoon naps. At home, used to wakeful nights, she had a pile of crossword puzzles and cryptogram books to plow through. She’d forgotten to throw her puzzle books in her suitcase. She missed her house. Stupid air conditioning company.
Surely the whole household would be up any moment. She peered at the red digital numbers on the clock radio. Two-thirty. Her stomach gurgled. But with that dog’s barking, it would only be a matter of minutes that everyone would wake up. Might as well go ahead and fry up some eggs for the household.
A flabbergasted-looking Red, stumbling into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, was met by the sight of his mother wrapped in a bright red robe and flipping eggs on the stove. “Hi, Red!” she said merrily. “Come to join me? That dog must have woken you up, too.”
“No, Mama. You woke me up when you yanked the pots and pans out. That’s what woke me up! You’re the only insomniac around here.”
“Keep your voice down! You’ll wake the whole house.”
Elaine poked her head around the kitchen door. “Is everything okay?” she yawned, rubbing her eyes. Mystified, she gazed at Myrtle, now doling out eggs on plates. “What time is it? Is it time to get up?”
Red threw his hands in the air as Elaine pulled up a kitchen stool and obediently started eating the egg placed on the counter in front of her. Myrtle heard him muttering oaths as he stomped back to the bedroom.
Myrtle smiled weakly at Elaine. “Sorry—it’s only two-thirty. I thought for sure that dog’s howling would wake y’all up, too. Want to crawl back in bed?”
Elaine chewed a mouthful of egg. “Actually,” she answered around it, “this kind of hits the spot. I wasn’t sleeping well anyway. Kept thinking I heard Jack. Then I got this idea for a painting that I want to try. It just popped into my head, fully-formed. I can’t wait to start working on it.”
With any luck, she wouldn’t be the subject of this one. Myrtle sat down and looked thoughtfully at her own plate of eggs. “Sounds wonderful, Elaine. It’s nice that you’ve been able to explore your creativity like this. The painting looks fantastic on Miles’ mantel. I let him have it over there to enjoy it while I’m staying with you.”
Elaine beamed at her.
Myrtle quickly changed the subject. “Think about it, Elaine. You’ve been waking up tonight hearing sounds that are either real or imagined. For me, I’ve been kept up by a dog barking…a perfectly ordinary thing, but still enough to keep me from sleeping. So if you and I are alert to sounds that should be expected, what about Agnes, who lives right next door to the Beauty Box? Shouldn’t she have heard a car pull up at a strange time?” She thoughtfully ate a forkful of scrambled eggs.
Elaine nodded. “Not only Agnes, but Dina. Why didn’t Dina hear anything?”
“Right! She’s living right in there with Tammy at the salon. Seems like she should have heard something when Tammy fell down the stairs. That must have made a huge racket. Tammy was a good-sized woman. See, I just don’t think that we’re getting the full story here. I’m going to have to ask a few questions.”
“Will you?” Elaine asked.
“Of course! You know I don’t like to be left in the dark on things.” She took a sip of her milk and looked at Elaine over the top of the glass. “Red hasn’t happened to share any information about the case with you, has he?” she asked in a quiet voice.
Elaine looked like she was trying to decide whether or not to say something. “You know it won’t go any farther than me, Elaine.”
“He did mention to me when we were turning in tonight that Tammy had given all her money to Dina and Kat. So it sounds like there could have been a financial motive at work, too.”
“Really? I know money talks, but I wonder if Tammy really had any money,” said Myrtle.
“I wondered the same thing. But Red told me that Tammy had a lot more money than he’d thought.”
Enough for Dina or Kat to kill Tammy before she acted on her threat to write them out of her will?