May for this very evening!"
"Are you sure?"
"Sure as I'm settin' here. Hazel Thompson wouldn't lie…. Well, about that bein' her hair's natural color, maybe, but not about something as important as this."
Heavy sigh from Tansie. "Well, honey, thanks for telling me. I'd better get off from here and tell Ada."
"All righty. If you need anything—like for me to go smack that Doris May right up side the head—"
"Huh. Bill made the date. He's the one what oughta be smacked."
"Yeah, but that hussy knows he's a married man. She ought not to have been castin' her wares around in front of him."
"Yeah, I know,” said Tansie. “Like I said, I'd better tell Ada."
[Click.]
Ain't that a fine howdy-do? Well, the man told Ada to make up her mind. I'd say she'd better do it before Doris May Culpepper makes it up for her.
In case you're wondering, Doris May was named after Doris Day. I know because I went to school with Doris May's mother, and the woman was totally infatuated with Doris Day. She wanted to be Doris Day; but since the opportunity had already passed for her, she named her baby Doris May. It was supposed to have been Doris Day, but she mumbled and the nurse wrote down "May" instead of "Day" on the birth certificate. Oh, well. That stuff happens sometimes. I heard even Oprah was supposed to have been "Orpah," and they spelled it wrong on her birth certificate. I'm glad. After seeing Oprah on television all these years, it don't sound right to call her "Orpah."
If memory serves, Doris May is married. But, then, Tansie and Melvia talked about Bill being married, but they didn't mention Doris May being married. I'd better check this out. Now, keep still while I'm on the phone. Don't want Melvia to know I'm discussin' her and her sister's business with anybody.
"Melvia? Hi, sweetie, it's Myrtle Crumb. How’re you doin'?"
"I'm fine, Myrtle. How're you?"
"I'm doin' all right, but I have to say, I'm awfully concerned about poor Ada."
"Well, I am, too. She oughta go back home like she has some sense."
"I hope it's not too late already," I said.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, I hate to gossip, but I heard that Bill was hanging around Doris May Culpepper."
"Have mercy, don't word travel fast?" Melvia clucked her tongue.
"I don't know that I believe it, though. I thought Doris May was married to that nice restaurant manager."
"Oh, that ended about a year and a half ago. From what I hear, he's still crazy about her, but she left him. Said it was because he drank too much."
"Well, ain't that a shame?"
"Yeah. Yeah, it is, Myrtle. But the real shame is that now another home is about to be broke up because of it."
"Ain't that the truth? Well, if there's anything I can do…."
"Thanks, dear, but I doubt there's anything any of us can do at this point."
"Now, I wouldn't be too sure about that. I made a nice crumb cake this morning. Stop by later and we'll have a piece and put our heads together over this predicament."
"Okay. Thanks."
You know, at that point, I agreed with Melvia that there probably wasn't anything any of us could do. Imagine my surprise when Doris May turned up dead. I reckon somebody did do something.
Snoopin' Around
Come in and let me tell you the latest. You know that Doris May Culpepper turned up dead, don't you? They found her face down in a pot of beef vegetable soup in that diner she works at. Pretty disgraceful and humiliating, if you ask me. No drugs or alcohol turned up in the autopsy, so the police are investigating this thing as a homicide.
I got to thinkin' about it: the police don't know the situation and the folks involved as well as I do. So I figured I give 'em a hand with their investigation. I put on my beige poly-blend suit, black pillbox hat and black pumps. I looked very "Jackie-O," I thought. I imagined that people would open up to me more if I looked like Jackie.
The first person I went to see was Melvia. After all, she'd offered to smack Doris May up side the head. Maybe Melvia went plumb wild and drowned Doris May in that pot of soup. You never know.
Melvia answered the door in a housedress, so I had the upper hand right off…me lookin' like Jackie and all.
"Where are you off to so gussied up, Myrtle?" Melvia asked.
I told her I had some errands to run. "I thought I'd stop by and see if you needed me to pick up anything for you while I was out," I said slyly. "Like, maybe…oh, I don't know…your dry cleaning?" Beef vegetable leaves a terrible stain, you know.
"No, honey, I don't need a thing," Melvia said, "but thanks for asking."
From Melvia's, I walked straight to Tansie's house. Melvia watched me. I know because I turned and saw her peekin' out the window. Pretty suspicious behavior, if you ask me. Spying on a solicitous neighbor.
Tansie looked a little better than Melvia. She had on a pale blue pantsuit that brought out the blue tint in her hair. Obviously, she was getting ready to go somewhere…maybe to the dry cleaners. I'm telling you, beef vegetable really does stain awful. Faye once bumped my elbow, and I spilled a whole spoonful down the front of my sweater. A white sweater. I wound up having to put the thing in the dog's bed. But back to Tansie.
"Why, Myrtle, what a nice surprise."
The way she said it made me think it wasn't nice or a surprise either. I figure Melvia wasn't the only sister who spied on her neighbors.
"Well," I said, "I'm getting ready to run some errands so I thought I'd check and see if you or Ada need anything while I'm out. Just bein' neighborly, you know."
"As a matter of fact, we're goin' out, too. Appreciate you stoppin' by, though."
I want you to know that she all but tried to push me right out the door. I thought that was pretty shady of her. So, I stood firm—braced myself against the doorpost even.
"Terrible about Doris May, wasn't it?" I asked.
"Yes…yes, it was.” She looked over her shoulder. “Ada, honey, we need to be going!"
"The funeral home'll have a time getting that soup out of her hair in time for the viewing. Faye once got spaghetti sauce in her hair—she was just little, you know—and it was the devil to get out."
"I'm sure it was," Tansie said, glancing around again to see if Ada was coming yet.
"Washed it three times, and it still had a pink cast to it."
"Well, Myrtle, I really would love to chat, but—"
"In a way, I guess this whole thing's a relief, ain't it?" I said, refusing to be so easily dismissed. All them detectives on television are tenacious, and I wasn't about to do any less than they would do.
Tansie gave me the owl-eyes. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.
I gave her the old nonchalant shrug. "Doris May was tryin' to take Ada's man. This has to be a worry off her mind."
Tansie gasped. "What a terrible thing to say!"
"Maybe, but it is true, ain't it?"
Wouldn't you know it? Right then, Ada came down the stairs. She took one look at Tansie's owl-eyes and slack jaw and said, "You ready, Mama?"
Tansie nodded her head, and Ada took her Mama's arm and they strode right past me. I took a good hard sniff, but I didn't smell any beef vegetable lingering on either one of them. They forgot to pull the door up, so I did that for them. It was the least I could do. I like bein' neighborly.
They'd done got in Tansie's Cadillac and gone by the time I got off the porch. That was fine by me—I had more investigating to do.
I decided to start with Bill, Ada's husband.
Makin' Progress
I found Ada's husband Bill down at his office. His secretary must've been at lunch or something, because Bill was sittin' at her desk. We'd only met a handful of times, so he didn't recognize me. That gave me a chance to get his initial, unguarded reaction.
"May I help you?" he asked.
"Certainly," I replied. "You can tell me whether or not you drowned Doris May Culpepper in a pot of beef vegetable soup."
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His eyes got as big as saucers; and when he spoke again, it was in a squeaky voice. "Who are you?"
"Myrtle Crumb. I'm Tansie's neighbor."
"And you think I killed Doris May?"
He didn't offer, but I pulled up a chair and sat down. "Come to think of it, that wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it? Why would you wanna kill Doris May?"
"I wouldn't!"
"'Course not. That way, if Ada decided not to come back, you'd have Doris on the string."
He opened his mouth to say somethin', but nothin' came out so he shut it again.
I leaned my elbow on the desk. "What about Ada? You reckon she did it?"
He sputtered like a drenched chicken for a minute and then asked, "What's it to you?"
"I'm giving the police a little assistance on this one." I held my mouth the way I figured Jackie-O would've after making such a bold statement.
"Oh, are you, now?"
I gave him what I considered to be a regal nod.
"Have you been deputized?" he asked, with a little sneer to his voice. "Because if you haven't, then you're trespassing and you need to leave."
I stood. "Seems to me you're pretty defensive for a man who claims he has nothing to hide."
"Good day, Ms. Crumb."
"Good day, Kill…I mean, Bill." And with that Freudy slip, I left.
I didn't know much about Doris May's ex-husband, so I went to the beauty shop. The gals at the Tilt-A-Curl can give you the low-down on anybody.
"Why, Myrtle!" Bess exclaimed. "You look like you just stepped out of a band box!"
"Thank you, Bess. I wondered if Trudy might be able to work me in for a manicure?"
Bess looked at the messy appointment book. "Not today, honey. Wanna come in on Friday?"
"No, I was really hopin' she could take me today. Wasn't that