Erma gave her a leering grin. "Can I be your sidekick again?"

Myrtle recoiled. Erma was decidedly not sidekick material. Sure she had, somewhat accidentally, helped with a couple of cases. But it was only in the most roundabout of ways.

Myrtle deftly skirted the question, instead, asking one of her own. "Does this mean you have information to share?"

"Course I do!" Erma gave her braying laugh and winked at Myrtle. "You know I always have my fingers on the pulse of the town."

Myrtle wouldn't have said that. She'd found that most everyone with a pulse in Bradley hastily headed in a different direction when Erma was heading their way. "What have you got?" she asked crisply.

Erma gave an elaborate pantomime of checking to make sure that Olive was otherwise occupied. Satisfied she was safely out of earshot, she leaned forward. Myrtle, naturally, leaned back. This, unfortunately, had the unsatisfactory result of making Myrtle off-balance. She stumbled backward and Erma grabbed her arm again to catch her.

"Steady there," said Erma with that braying laugh again.

Myrtle removed her arm and gave Erma an expectant look. "The information?"

Erma said, "I happen to know that the tree episode was a bigger deal than Olive was letting on."

"The tree in Olive's yard that she wished to cut down and that Ezra wanted her to keep?"

Erma chuckled. "The very one. Olive wants more sunlight in her backyard in order to grow stuff." Here, Erma seemed puzzled as to what exactly Olive might be wanting to grow. She shrugged. "Anyway, Ezra figured out Olive's plan because he saw a tree service truck outside. He marched right over there and told her she couldn't touch the tree—that it would be a travesty." Erma paused a moment, waiting for a reaction from Myrtle.

"Well, cutting down healthy trees is something of a travesty." She glanced across the room to where Wanda was apparently giving fortunes to the assembled garden club gals. Wanda gave her a weary look. "Get to the point, Erma."

Erma, luckily, sped up the story. "Anyway, that made Olive furious. She ended up yelling at Ezra. Apparently, she's not used to people telling her what to do. So Olive was red in the face, screaming. She even said some bad words." Erma's voice dipped precipitously as she gave a pious look.

Myrtle frowned. "How exactly are you getting the information for this fly-on-the-wall rendition of this story, Erma? I can't imagine that you were at Olive's house when this occurred."

Erma looked proud. "Clarabelle Martinsson is my friend and she lives directly next door to Olive. Plus, Clarabelle spends lots of time on her screened porch."

Plus, Clarabelle was an eavesdropper and gossip-monger. It all made sense now.

Erma apparently wasn't ready to stop being helpful. "There's more, too. It's not the first time Ezra has gotten involved with Olive's yard. She was getting her yardman to prune her crepe myrtle trees and Ezra came flying out saying the trees didn't need pruning too far back. Said it ruined the natural form of the tree. Olive really lost it. She doesn't like being told what to do."

"Well, thanks for this information, Erma," said Myrtle, starting to sidle away. "I need to collect Wanda now."

Or throw her a life preserver. The crowd around her was decidedly growing. She could hear Blanche asking Wanda if Blanche's current beau was "the one."

Myrtle inserted herself in the very middle of the crowd surrounding Wanda. This was easy to do because Myrtle wielded a cane and she wasn't above using it. The women, all of them younger than Myrtle, stepped carefully away from her. Myrtle said, "Ready?" to Wanda and Wanda gave her a relieved nod.

Myrtle sent Wanda on ahead while she made a quick visit to the table still piled with foods. The caterer for the meeting had tried to put a box of zipper bags in an inconspicuous location. Myrtle's eagle eyes spotted them, however. She hastily filled up several bags, stuffed them in her large pocketbook, and hurried to meet up with Wanda outside.

They made their way down Tippy's long, tree-lined driveway to the street.

"Sorry about all that foolishness," said Myrtle, scowling. "Those women lose their marbles when you're around."

"Sorry you got stuck with Erma," said Wanda, well-acquainted with Myrtle's struggles with her neighbor.

"Well, that's all par for the course. I hadn't had an Erma encounter for a long time. I guess all good things must come to an end."

"Suppose she told you about the tree," drawled Wanda.

"Yes, she did. And it saddens me that I apparently had a completely unnecessary conversation with Erma since it's clear you know all about the tree in dispute."

Wanda nodded. "Jest a little bit. I know Olive was real mad. Ezra was kinda sayin' he knew better than she did what to do with the tree."

"Naturally he did. He's a botanist. Olive is simply a know-it-all with a big mouth. I guess it all boils down to the fact that Olive was furious at Ezra. It doesn't even really matter what it was about. She was angry and she might have wanted to get back at him. Would Olive have chosen to murder Luther Cobb in order to implicate Ezra? That seems a bit farfetched, but then, Olive is a bit farfetched."

Wanda raised an eyebrow. "Miles is gonna pick us up, by the way."

"Is he? Having the sight really is helpful, Wanda, isn't it? And what excellent timing. I was getting rather tired of walking today. Plus, my handbag is extremely heavy from all the contraband hors d'oeuvres."

Sure enough, Miles pulled up right next to them in his Volvo.

"Garden club?" he asked laconically.

Myrtle nodded. "Can you give us a ride back to the house?"

Wanda and Myrtle clambered into the car and Miles set off.

"Have you run away from home?" asked Myrtle. "I thought you were supposed to be playing chess with my daughter-in-law right about now."

Miles looked gleeful. "We had to stop our game after about thirty minutes. Jack flat-out refused to take a nap. It was wonderful." He paused. "The funny thing is, right before Elaine put him down, I swear that Jack winked at me as if he were planning the whole thing."

Myrtle said, "I'm sure he did. Jack is positively brilliant. He probably saw your discomfort at playing chess with Elaine and decided to throw the afternoon into chaos to help you out."

"Chaos is the right word for it. I've never heard such a commotion in my life."

Wanda drawled, "How was the chess?"

Miles sighed. "I'm afraid it didn't go very well, but that could have been because Elaine was so distracted by Jack's fussing."

"Unlikely," said Myrtle. "You're being very generous, Miles. We've seen that there's rarely a hobby in which Elaine displays the slightest bit of talent."

"It was something of a disaster. She got the pieces mixed up and was moving the rook like a bishop at one point."

"The poor thing," said Myrtle.

"Then there were more-basic errors. She was moving the pawns too much at the beginning of the game and her king was exposed in the center." Miles's face was worried.

"You look like you're going to be having nightmares about this game tonight," said Myrtle. "You should just start taking her pieces and be done with it."

Miles pulled into Myrtle's driveway. "I don't think I can do that. I feel bad for her."

"You're far too charitable. You should feel bad for yourself. Besides, the sooner she realizes this isn't the hobby for her, the sooner she can try to croquet or something more innocuous."

"I thought chess was innocuous," said Miles.

"Not in Elaine's hands, it's not."

They got out of the car and headed inside. "What's the plan now?" asked Miles.

"We regroup. I need to figure out what our next move is."

Miles asked, "How was garden club?"

Wanda croaked, "Program was good."

"And the food was good," added Myrtle, taking the zipper bags from her purse and putting them in the fridge. "But that's to be expected when Tippy is hosting. Poor Wanda was overrun by old biddies trying to get their fortunes, of course."

Poor Wanda shrugged a thin shoulder. "It was okay."

They settled into the living room.

"Did you find out any additional information about the case?" asked Miles.

"I did spend some time speaking with Olive. And an unfortunate amount of time speaking with Erma who is campaigning to be considered a sidekick."

Miles gave her a sympathetic look. "Sorry."

"Yes. At least she was able to offer a bit of information about Olive and Ezra. Apparently, the contretemps with Ezra over the tree was somewhat heated."

"Can a contretemps be heated?" Miles frowned.

"It cannot. It graduates to a dispute. Or perhaps an altercation. We were led to believe that it was a minor quarrel, but according to Erma, it was actually more than that. Plus, there was another issue over Olive's crepe myrtles."

Miles mulled this over. "So you're saying that Olive was so upset by Ezra's defense of the tree that she killed Luther and set Ezra up to take the blame?"

"I'm certainly not saying anything of the sort. But it's true that Olive deliberately downplayed the incident for one reason or another." Myrtle turned to Wanda. "What's your take on this?"

Wanda drawled, "Olive could've done it."

"That's what I think, too. I'm not saying she did, and it seems utterly implausible, but then Olive herself is utterly implausible. She likes to know things and she likes to be right. Maybe she just snapped. She must have known she wouldn't seem like much of a suspect. Olive could have felt sure she would get away with it."

Miles said, "Did Olive offer any information about who might have killed Luther?"

Myrtle pursed her lips. "She thought that there were all sorts of odd relationships going on around her. For someone who's never been married, she seems to believe she's very perceptive about relationships."

"Relationships? Was Luther having an affair?"

Myrtle said, "Who knows? Olive was more focused on the relationship between Marshall Sanders and his wife Lucinda."

"Lucinda, Ezra's best friend?"

"Naturally. How many Lucindas do you know? At any rate, she thought Marshall and Lucinda's marriage was rather odd. She intimated that either there might be something going on between Lucinda and Ezra or that Marshall thought there was."

Wanda croaked, "Ain't no relationship there. Just friends."

"Precisely. I've observed Ezra and Lucinda's friendship for decades and there appears to be no spark there whatsoever. They're just good friends who have a lot in common." Myrtle looked thoughtful. "I believe the next step is speaking to Marshall Sanders."

Miles raised his eyebrows. "You just said that Marshall didn't have anything to be jealous about."

"He doesn't. But human beings aren't rational. He might think he has something to be jealous about. That gives him a motive to try and set Ezra up for Luther's murder."

Miles said, "I still don't understand why Marshall would want to kill Luther, specifically, though, even if he were trying to set up Ezra."

Myrtle waved her hands around. "Maybe it didn't matter to Marshall who he killed. Maybe he was so focused on getting rid of Ezra for good that he was just looking for an easy target. And Luther was an easy target. He was recovering from a fairly devastating accident. Besides, lots of people were dropping off food for Dinah and him so it wouldn't look suspicious if he dropped off a pie laced with nightshade. It was just a crime of opportunity. We should pay him a visit."

Miles suddenly looked very tired. "We're not just going to walk over there and interview him at his house, are we?"

"Of course not. We'll go over to the high school where he works and speak with him there."

Miles's face was positively horrified.

Myrtle waved her hand dismissively. "It won't be that big of a deal, Miles. He not only teaches there, he coaches over there, too. We can walk the track by the school and wait for an opportunity to talk to him."

Miles looked down at his button-down shirt and khakis. "I don't think I'm properly attired for walking on a track."

"We won't be jogging, Miles. It's just the same as walking down the sidewalk."

"I think expectations are higher when one is walking on a track. There's a certain level of athleticism that's assumed."

"Not from people our age."

Miles looked unhappy at being looped in with Myrtle's age group. He was in his 70s and rather proud of it.

Myrtle turned to Wanda. "Would you like to walk around the track with us?"

Wanda, at the moment, was looking longingly at the deck of cards on Myrtle's kitchen table. She said slowly, "Can make it if you want me to."

Myrtle caught the longing look and said, "You've already had an exhausting day, what with the garden club gals. Why don't you settle down, turn on the TV, and play cards for a while? There's food from Tippy's house in the fridge. You still enjoy solitaire?"

Wanda nodded. "Wouldn't mind learning chess. Don't know if Dan'll play it with me, though."

Myrtle prided herself on her imagination, but still couldn't visualize Crazy Dan with his chewing tobacco and wild eyes being erudite enough to grasp, much less play, the game of chess.

Miles, who always felt a sense of responsibility toward Wanda said slowly, "I suppose I could teach you to play. It's the sort of game you can play with a computer pretty easily."

Myrtle quirked an eyebrow at him. "If one has a computer."

"Right." Miles colored. "I suppose you and I could have an ongoing game, Wanda. If you end up liking chess."

Wanda looked pleased. "Sounds good."

A few minutes later, Myrtle and Miles set out to his car and drove to the high school.

As Miles parked near the track and football field, Myrtle smiled, "Makes me feel like I'm back teaching school again."

"Do you miss it? Teaching, I mean?"

"Gracious no. I miss the kids, though. The kids always made it worthwhile. But I don't miss staff meetings and I certainly don't miss grading papers. When you're an English teacher, there are lots of papers to grade."

Miles winced. "I can only imagine."

"You must be feeling relieved that there was no grading involved in being an attorney. Although I suppose there was plenty of writing to do."

Miles gritted his teeth. "Engineer."

"Whatever," said Myrtle airily as she climbed out of the car.

They were faced with a good number of steps leading down through the stadium to the track. Miles gave them an uncertain look. "Are you sure you want to navigate those stairs? Going down will be easier than going up."

"Actually, when one has a tricky knee, it's easier going up than going down. Anyway, I'm going to hold on very carefully to your arm with one hand and my trusty cane with the other."

Miles frowned down at the people below. There were various teams doing warm-ups on the field and others who were running around the track. "Are we absolutely sure that Marshall is down there? I'm supposing he's very busy, too, if he's coaching."

"Pfft. Coaching has built-in breaks. You tell the kids to do however many pushups and then they have to spend time doing them. And he's down there . . . see the man with the blond hair and the golf shirt?"

Miles nodded and looked unhappily at the stairs again. "All right."

They made their way slowly down the stairs. They hadn't gotten but halfway down when suddenly, the blond man in the golf shirt bounded up the stairs toward them. "Miss Myrtle!" he called out. "Need some help?"

Miles muttered under his breath, "As if I weren't even here helping you. I feel very invisible right now."

"Be nice, Miles. He's something of an over-achiever. I guess helping little old ladies down stadium stairs makes him feel good about himself."

Miles cast a disbelieving glance over Myrtle. She was nearly six feet tall, quite sturdily-built, and didn't fit anyone's definition of a little old lady.

She called out to Marshall, "Thank you!"

Marshall was next to them in seconds and relieved Miles of his duties. "Are you just here to get a little exercise in, Miss Myrtle? I don't think I've seen you out here."

"Oh, my doctor is something of a fussbudget and he suggested I work out my knee a bit. I thought the track might be a good idea."

Marshall looked doubtful. "Is it? I'd think walking around downtown might be a little better. Going up and down these stairs might provide more of a workout than the doctor was expecting. Plus, you'll have members of the track team flying by you. Things could get dangerous."

"It'll be just fine, don't worry. Then I'll be absolutely worn out for the day and might be able to sleep tonight."

Marshall raised his eyebrows. "I seem to remember you talking in class about how you were an insomniac. Has that changed?"

Miles snorted as he made his way down the stairs behind him.

Myrtle turned to shoot him a look. She said to Marshall, "What an excellent memory you have! No, I'm afraid my sleeping hasn't much improved. At this point, I've simply given in to the insomnia. I'll get up and do laundry or go for a walk. It's much better than lying in bed and trying to count sheep and that sort of nonsense."

Marshall delivered her carefully to the bottom of the stairs and made sure she was standing steadily on the track before letting her go. He glanced back at Miles and said, "How are you doing there? All good?"

Miles was clearly trying to hide his irritation. Rather unsuccessfully, it turned out. "I'm good—I have no problems with stairs."

"That's good," said Marshall absently as he glanced across the field at his team. He suddenly bellowed at them, making Miles jump. "Hey! Who said you guys could stop? Single-leg squats, right now!" He turned back to them apologetically. "Sorry. My team will use any excuse to get out of exercising. Now, how are you doing, Miss Myrtle?" He turned to Miles. "Miss Myrtle tried to get me better at my native tongue many years ago when I was in high school. I do believe she was the only teacher able to make some headway. I was pretty stubborn back then, but she was able to get me to write a decent sentence."

Myrtle straightened her shoulders a little and looked pleased. "Why thank you, Marshall. That's so kind of you to say so."

"I won't much thank you for making me read that story about the poor pony, though." His face darkened. "Think I still have nightmares about that."

Myrtle raised her eyebrows. "The Red Pony? One of John Steinbeck's many masterpieces."

"And long." Marshall gave Miles a long-suffering look as if expecting sympathy. Miles, however, was quite the fan of Steinbeck and was still annoyed at Marshall, so he was only able to give him a tight smile in return.

"Long!" Myrtle snorted. "It's a novella. It was originally released in episodic form in a periodical."

"There you go speaking High English again," chuckled Marshall. "You've lost me."

"Anyway, it's fortuitous that I've run into you today. I've been thinking about you recently."

"Have you? Uh-oh. That sounds a little ominous."

Myrtle folded her hands together on top of her cane. "It's all this business with Luther Cobb."

Marshall nodded, glancing over at his team again. "One sec, Miss Myrtle." Then he hollered, "Okay, guys. Let's start doing burpees."

Myrtle and Miles looked rather alarmed as if something coarse and unseemly was about to unfold. They were relieved to see the team members do pushups followed by leaps into the air before squatting.

Marshall said, "Sorry, you were saying something, Miss Myrtle."

Myrtle repeated, "Luther Cobb."

"Ah, yes. I believe he just recently died, didn't he? That seems like bad luck. Wasn't the guy just recovering from a car accident?"

"That's right. Although his death didn't result from an accident."

Marshall raised his eyebrows. "You're not saying he was murdered?"

"I'm afraid he was. He was murdered."

Marshall blinked in surprise. "Wow. Well, that's very surprising. I mean, Luther wasn't the most popular man in town, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to bump him off. Was he shot or something?"

"He was poisoned. And I'm surprised, in a town like this, that you don't know anything about it. I'd have thought Lucinda would have filled you in . . . or any number of people."

Marshall shrugged. "Lucinda and I have been focused on other things, I guess. And aside from teaching and coaching, I haven't been out of the house much recently. The kids don't really care about stuff like that, you know."

Myrtle, actually, didn't know this. In her experience, her high school students had always had something of a macabre interest in local crime stories. But she said, "I suppose not."

Marshall said, "Poisoned. That's so unreal."

"Were you friends with Luther?" asked Miles politely.

Marshall shook his head. "No, I really didn't know the guy. I've heard people talk about him, though, and I've seen him out in public before. Kind of brusque, not real friendly."

"That sums him up pretty well," said Myrtle.

"Where was his house?" asked Marshall.

Myrtle told him and Marshall grunted again. "Too bad. I thought maybe I'd driven by it on my way to work or something. But I didn't, so I can't give any sort of information to the police. I'm sure they're not thinking his wife did it, are they?"

Myrtle was quite sure that the police were thinking that. It was so often the spouse when these types of things happened. But she said, "You know Red doesn't give me any information at all. He tends to keep his investigations to himself. Are you a friend of Dinah's?"

Marshall colored a little. To cover this, he turned toward his team again. "Water break!" he roared, making Miles jump. Marshall turned back toward them, seeming a bit more composed. "No, I don't know either one of them. It's just that it's hard to imagine a wife poisoning her husband, isn't it? It somehow seems like more of an outside job."

Myrtle was quite sure that poisonings were a preferred murder method by women. She found it very interesting that Marshall was defending Luther's wife. "Who do you think might have done it? Have you heard of anyone who was upset with Luther?"

He said hastily, "No, like I said, I haven't been out much aside from the school. And I didn't know Luther. It could have been anyone, couldn't it? He didn't have the best reputation around town, like I said. I don't think he was a really sterling guy, as far as I can tell."

Myrtle was tiring of Marshall's implausible vagaries. She said in a stern, schoolteacher voice, "Now, Marshall. You've lived in this town for too long not to know about the rumor mill."

Marshall tensed up. "Are people saying things?"

Myrtle said, "They are. About Jasper, as a matter of fact. I figured you might have a good take on it all, considering how involved he is over here. I believe he even does some coaching, doesn't he?"

Marshall nodded. "I didn't want anyone to think Jasper might have done this, but it sounds like word might already be out. Now, I don't think Jasper could hurt a fly, Miss Myrtle. But he did tell me that his son Archie had a run-in with Luther."

"What sort of run-in was it?" Marshall hesitated and Myrtle pursed her lips. "Apparently, there was some sort of minor incident involving vandalism that Luther was privy to? From what I understand, Luther saw Archie do something untoward and threatened to report him to the authorities?"

"Well, I'm sure it was all really nothing. You know how boys are, Miss Myrtle. Well, I guess you must, since Red's your son."

"That's true. And Red was not always the most exemplary teenager. I found it rather surprising that he ended up devoting his life to crime-fighting. I hear that Archie is working very hard to get an athletic scholarship, is that true?"

Marshall nodded. "Yes, Archie has a real promising future ahead of him with baseball. There are always scouts showing up for practice to see what he's up to. I'm thinking he might end up going to one of the top schools in the country. He's the star of the team. Actually, he's probably the star of the school, across all of the different sports. Archie is a standout and I'm sure he's got a really bright future, like I was saying."

"If he doesn't have a checkered past," said Myrtle.

"Look, Miss Myrtle, all I know is that Archie didn't have anything to do with this guy's death. He was at an away game and even had to leave early and skip school to ride on the team bus."

Miles said slowly, "But you weren't with them? I thought you were the coach?"

Marshall shook his head and gestured to the kids on the field who were enjoying their extended water break. "I coach soccer; there's another teacher who coaches baseball. Like I said, I was just teaching that day."

Myrtle said cheerfully, "On a more pleasant subject, how is dear Lucinda doing? I haven't seen her for a little while."

Marshall said in a vague tone, "Oh, she's doing fine, Miss Myrtle. I need to probably take her out to dinner or something because I haven't seen much of her, myself. Between school and coaching and games, I haven't been around as much as I'd like."

"It's good she has such a nice friendship with Ezra," said Myrtle innocently. "Those two have always been peas in a pod since they were here in high school, themselves."

Miles looked anxious at this particular line of questioning.

Marshall suddenly appeared less vague and distracted and much more focused. "Yes. They always have been, haven't they?"

"I think you're such an understanding husband, really. Not many people understand that a man and a woman can be just friends. Miles and I are just friends for instance."

Miles gave Marshall a tight smile as if still concerned Marshall might suddenly snap at the mention of his wife and the botanist together.

But Marshall merely said, "Yes. And it's good that Lucinda has someone to talk to when I'm away so much." He paused. "You're probably away and busy quite a bit yourself, Miss Myrtle, aren't you? You're still working at the newspaper, right?"

It seemed to Myrtle like quite an abrupt change in conversation. Myrtle nodded. "That's right."

Marshall turned to Miles. "Miss Myrtle was in charge of the student newspaper when I was in school here. And the yearbook, I think?"

Myrtle nodded again. "And the literary magazine, as well. There was always something to do. But then, you understand that, too, since you teach and coach."

Marshall glanced at his watch. "Speaking of coaching, I've got to get back to it. Are you two going to be okay going back up the stairs?"

Miles bristled a bit. Myrtle said with a smile, "We'll be just fine, Marshall. Good to see you."

Marshall hurried away, looking relieved to be escaping their conversation. Miles sighed. "I suppose we have to walk, then? For appearance's sake?"

"For health's sake, too. We don't have much else to do today anyway, aside from your teaching Wanda how to play chess. We can walk for a little while, head back to my house for lunch, and then you and Wanda can play the game."